VN 

2257 

Dzs 

UC-NRLF 


B    3    571    D71 


./&■ 


This  is  one  of  an  edition  of  two  hundred  and 
sixty  copies  printed  from  type  for  the,  Dunlap  Society 
in  the  month  of  May,  1896. 


,  (3^(0^^^^^^*^  ^^^ 


MAY  2  7  1953 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
BERKELEY 


flt-U^^  J 


FIRST  THEATER  IN  AMERICA 


t^///ry/  y////r/r    /■////^•■\     }/'//■-.  4' /  /        f  '/^'//////i"//  '•  ■^/r</,j. 


FIRST  THEATER  IN  AMERICA  ' 


WHEN   WAS  THE   DRAMA 
FIRST  INTRODUCED   IN   AMERICA? 


%n  ginciuirp 


BY 

HON.  CHARLES  P./DALY,  LL  D. 

INCLUDING 

A  CONSIDERATION  OF  THE  OBJECTIONS  THAT  HAVE   BEEN 
MADE   TO  THE   STAGE 


NEW-YORK 

THE  DUNLAP  SOCIETY 

1896 


Copyright,  1896,  by  Charles  P.  Daly. 


q^ 


INTRODUCTION. 

77/.?  paper  here  reprinted  by  the  Diinlap  Society  ivas 
read  before  the  New  York  Historical  Society  more  than 
thirty  years  ago.  In  looking  through  the  files  of  Colo- 
nial newspapers  in  the  possession  of  that  institution  for 
another  purpose,  my  attention  was  called  by  the  late 
Thomas  F.  De  Voe,  who  devoted  his  leisure  largely  to 
the  examination  of  Colonial  neivspapers,  and  especially 
those  of  Colonial  New  York,  to  an  advertisement  showing 
that  there  7vas  a  theater  in  the  City  of  New  York  ante- 
rior to  the  arrival  of  the  cojnpauy  that,  as  Dunlap  ex- 
pressed it,  '■'^  planted  the  drama  in  America."  I  followed 
up  Mr.  De  Voe's  discovery  by  going  over  the  Colonial 
fiewspapers  of  Neiv  York  in  the  possession  of  the  Histori- 
cal Society  for  further  information,  and  embodied  the 
result  in  the  paper  read  before  that  body.  The  paper 
was  published  at  the  time  in  the  "  Ne7v  York  Evening 
Post,"  and  a  limited  number  of  copies  of  it  were  printed 
by  that  journal  in  pa^nphlet  form.  In  expressing  a  7vish 
to  reprint  it  the  Dunlap  Society  requested  that  I  would 
augment  the  information  by  an  account  of  what  has  since 
been  ascertained  upon  the  subject,  a  request  with  tvhich 
I  have  complied  by  adding  it  at  the  end  as  a  suppletnent, 
preferring  that  the  paper  should  remain  as  it  appeared 
originally. 


633 


jTirst  Cijeater  in  !america. 


WHEN    WAS    THE    DRAMA 
FIRST  INTRODUCED  IN  AMERICA? 

DUNLAP,  the  historian  of  the  American  Stage,  in- 
forms us  that  the  drama  was  introduced  in  this 
country  by  William  Hallam,  the  successor  of  Gar- 
rick  in  Goodman's  Field  Theatre,  who  formed  a  joint 
stock  company  and  sent  them  to  America  under  the 
management  of  his  brother  Lewis  Hallam  in  the  year 
1752,  and  that  the  first  play  ever  acted  in  America  was 
the  "  Merchant  of  Venice,"  represented  by  this  com- 
pany on  September  5,  1752,  at  Williamsburg,  then 
the  capital  of  Virginia,  in  an  old  store-house  which 
they  converted  into  a  theater  within  two  months  after 
their  arrival  at  Yorktown.  Dunlap's  familiarity  with 
the  subject,  the  fact  that  he  derived  his  informa- 
tion from  Lewis  Hallam,  Jr.,  who  came  out  a  boy 
twelve  years  of  age  with  this  early  company,  and  the 
circumstance  that  Burke,  in  his  "  History  of  Virginia," 
has  the  same  statement,  have  been  deemed  sufficiently 
satisfactory,  and  William  Hallam,  whom  Dunlap  calls 


fit^t  Cljcatcc  in  3tmcrica. 


"  the  Father  of  the  American  stage,"  has  been  accepted 
as  the  i)erson  who  first  introduced  the  drama  in 
America.* 


THE    FIRST   THEATER    IN   NEW  YORK. 

BUT  Dunlap  and  those  upon  whom  he  rehed  were 
mistaken,  for  there  was  a  theater  in  the  city  of  New 
York  in  1733,  nineteen  years  before  HaHam  arrived 
in  this  country.  It  is  mentioned  in  Bradford's  "  Ga- 
zette "  of  that  year,  in  the  advertisement  of  a  merchant 
who  directs  inquiries  to  be  made  of  him  at  his  store 

*This  is  a  mistake.  Dunlap  gives  a  quotation  from  Burke's  "His- 
tory of  Virginia  "  as  follows :  "  Under  the  presidency  of  Thomas 
Lee,  the  New  York  Company  of  Comedians  obtained  permission 
to  erect  a  theatre  in  Williamsburg,  /.  c,  in  the  year  I75°>  when 
no  New  York  company  existed,  or  any  other  on  the  continent." 
The  last  sentence,  "  when  no  New  York  company  existed,  or 
any  other  on  the  continent,"  is  not  by  Burke,  but  by  Dunlap, 
which  led  me  to  suppose  that  Burke  agreed  with  Dunlap  that  the 
drama  was  first  introduced  in  America  by  Hallam.  Burke  refers 
to  Kean  &  Murray's  company,  who  played  in  New  York  from 
the  6th  of  March  to  the  30th  of  April,  1750,  and  in  the  subse- 
quent part  of  the  year  may  have  gone  to  Williamsburg,  Virginia, 
and  obtained  permission  to  erect  a  theater  there  as  stated  by 
Burke.*  Dunlap  afterward  acknowledged  his  error  in  a  manu- 
script note  to  his  copy  of  his  history,  now  in  the  possession  of 
Thomas  J.  McKee,  Esq.,  of  the  city  of  New  York. 

Burke's  "History  of  Virginia,"  Vols,  i  and  ii.     Harpers,  1832. 


fit^t  Cijcatcr  in  511nicrica,  3 

"next  door  to  the  Play-House."  *  This  reference  is 
all  that  has  been  found  respecting  it;  but  in  the  month 
of  February,  1750,  more  than  two  years  before  the  ar- 
rival of  Hallam,  a  regular  company  of  actors,  under 
the  joint  management  of  Thomas  Kean  and  of  a  Mr. 
Murray,  came  to  this  city  from  Philadelphia,  and  ap- 
plied to  Admiral  George  Clinton,  then  the  governor 
of  the  Province  of  New  York,  for  permission  to  act. 
Governor  Clinton  was  a  man  of  rank,  the  son  of  an 
earl,  and  had  previously  held  a  distinguished  position 
as  commander  of  the  English  fleet  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean, while  his  wife.  Lady  CHnton,  was  a  woman  of 
great  personal  attractions  and  very  agreeable  manners, 
who  had  moved  in  the  first  circles  of  London  society. 
To  these  cultivated  persons  there  was  nothing  objec- 
tionable in  the  establishment  of  a  theater,  and  per- 
mission was  accordingly  granted,  though,  from  the 
spirit  afterward  exhibited  by  the  local  magistrates  in 
this  and  other  places,  it  would  probably  have  been  re- 
fused had  the  city  authorities  been  applied  to.  It  was 
announced  through  the  columns  of  the  "  Weekly  Post 
Boy  "  that  the  company  intended  to  perform  as  long 
as  the  season  lasted,  provided  they  met  with  suitable 
encouragement,  and  upon  obtaining  the  consent  of 

*  The  advertisement  is  as  follows  :  "  To  be  Sold  at  reasonable 
Rates,  All  Sorts  of  Household  Goods,  viz.,  Beds,  Chairs,  Tables, 
Chests  of  Drawers,  Looking  Glasses,  Andirons,  and  Pictures 
as  also  several  sorts  of  Druggs  and  Medicines,  also  a  Negro  Girl 
about  16  years  of  age,  has  had  the  Small-pox  and  is  fit  for  Town 
or  Country.  Enquire  of  George  Talbol,  next  Door  to  the  Play- 
House." — "New  York  Gazette,"  Octolier  15,  1733. 


4  fit^t  €i)catcr  in  ^llnictica, 

the  governor  they  hired  a  large  room  in  a  building  in 
Nassau  street,  belonging  to  the  estate  of  Rip  Van 
Dam,  formerly  president  of  the  Provincial  Council, 
and  converted  it  into  a  theater;  and  here,  on  March 
5,  1750,  they  produced  Shakespeare's  historical  play 
of  "  Richard  III.,"  as  altered  by  CoUey  Gibber,  in 
which  the  part  of  Richard  was  performed  by  Mr. 
Kean.  The  performance  was  announced  to  begin 
precisely  at  half-past  seven  o'clock,  and  the  public 
were  informed  that  no  person  would  be  admitted  be- 
hind the  scenes  —  an  important  reform,  as  it  had  been 
the  practice  in  London  from  Shakespeare's  time  to 
allow  the  purchasers  of  box  tickets  free  access  to  the 
stage;  a  custom  which  led  to  many  abuses  and 
immorahties. 


CAPACITY    OF   THE  THEATER. 

THE  room  which  had  been  converted  into  a  theater 
must  have  been  a  very  capacious  one,  as  it  was 
arranged  with  pit  and  gallery,  and  afterward  boxes 
were  added.  The  price  of  admission  to  the  boxes  was 
eight  shillings,  to  the  pit  five  shillings,  and  to  the 
gallery  three  shillings.  The  exact  capacity  of  this 
theater  is  known  from  the  following  circumstances: 
Upon  the  occasion  of  Mr.  Kean's  benefit,  who  was 
the  leading  tragedian,  he  was  honored  by  a  crowded 
house  in  his  favorite  part  of  Richard  III.,  and  great 


fit^t  Zf^cattt  in  3lmmca.  s 

complaint  having  been  made  that  more  tickets  had 
been  sold  than  the  house  could  hold,  Kean  published 
a  card  in  the  "  Post  Boy,"  which  was  accompanied  by 
a  certificate  of  Parker,  the  publisher,  to  the  effect  that 
he  had  printed  in  all  i6i  pit  tickets,  lo  box,  and  121 
gallery  tickets,  declaring  that  as  great  a  number  had 
been  in  the  house  before.  Kean  in  his  card  informs 
the  public  that  it  had  been  determined  not  to  receive 
any  money  at  the  door,  but  that  it  was  impossible  to 
carry  out  that  intention  without  giving  great  offense, 
and  that  the  purchasers  of  tickets  who  had  come  after 
the  house  was  filled  had  had  their  money  returned. 
It  may  be  inferred  from  this  circumstance  that  the 
players  found  "  satisfactory  encouragement."  "  Rich- 
ard III."  appears  to  have  been  a  favorite  piece, 
and  on  March  12,  1750,  it  was  announced  that  it 
would  be  acted  for  the  last  time,  together  with  the 
farce  of  "  The  Beau  in  the  Suds,"  and  that  on  the 
following  Saturday  Dryden's  play  of  "The  Spanish 
Frinr"  would  be  represented.  They  continued  to  play 
on  Monday,  Wednesday,  and  Saturday  from  the  5th 
of  March  to  the  30th  of  April,  1750,  when  the  sea- 
son closed,  and  that  the  experiment  was  successful 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  they  opened  the 
theater  again  for  another  season  on  the  30th  of  De- 
cember, 1750,  and  continued  to  play  three  times  a  week 
until  the  17th  of  June,  175 1,  closing  with  a  succession 
of  benefits,  when  the  company  went  to  Virginia. 


f  ir^t  Cfjcatcr  in  ^tnicrica. 


CHANGE    OF    MANAGEMENT. 

BEFORE  the  close  of  the  season,  Kean,  the  joint 
manager,  withdrew,  announcing  in  a  formal  card 
to  the  public  that  he  had  resolved  to  quit  the  stage, 
by  the  advice  of  several  gentlemen  in  town  who  were 
his  friends,  and  follow  his  employment  of  writing;  that 
his  co-manager,  Mr.  Murray,  had  agreed  to  give  him 
a  night  clear  of  all  expenses  for  his  half  of  the  clothes 
and  scenery  of  the  playhouse,  and  that  by  his  Ex- 
cellency the  Governor's  permission  he  would,  on  the 
following  Monday  evening,  enact  the  part  of  King 
Richard  III.  for  his  benefit,  being  the  last  time  of  his 
appearance  upon  the  stage.  On  the  Monday  follow- 
ing, April  29,  1 75 1,  the  performance  for  his  benefit 
was  changed  to  "The  Busybody"  and  "The  Virgin 
Unmasked,"  and  in  announcing  the  change  he  in- 
forms the  public,  as  an  additional  attraction,  that  there 
will  be  singing  by  Mr.  Woodham,  and  particularly  the 
celebrated  ode  called  "Britons'  Charter,"  closing  with 
this  appeal :  "  As  this  will  positively  be  the  last  time 
of  Mr.  Kean's  appearing  upon  the  stage,  he  honestly 
hopes  all  gentlemen  and  ladies,  and  others  who  are 
his  well  wishers,  will  be  so  kind  as  to  favor  him  with 
their  company." 


fit^t  Ctjcatcr  in  ^tnicrica* 


PLAYS   PRODUCED. 

HOW  this  company  were  collected,  or  where  they 
originally  came  from,  it  is  probably  now  no 
longer  possible  to  ascertain.  As  they  were  announced, 
upon  their  first  appearance  in  New  York,  as  a  company 
of  comedians  who  had  come  from  Philadelphia,  it  is 
highly  probable  that  they  had  played  before  in  the 
Southern  cities,  and  that  they  came  originally  from  the 
West  Indies,  where,  especially  in  Jamaica,  theatrical 
companies  from  England  had  been  in  the  habit  of  per- 
forming for  some  years  previously.  During  the  two 
seasons  of  the  company  in  New  York  the  following 
plays  were  given:  "Richard  III.";  Otway's  "Orphan"; 
Dryden's  "  Spanish  Friar  " ;  Farquhar's  "  Sir  Harry 
Wildair,"  being  the  sequel  to  the  "  Trip  to  the  Jubi- 
lee " ;  "  Recruiting  Officer  "  and  "  Beaux'  Stratagem  "; 
"  George  Barnwell " ;  "  The  Beggar's  Opera  " ;  "  The 
Distressed  Mother" ;  Congreve's  "  Love  for  Love"  and 
the  "Bold  Stroke  for  a  Wife";  with  the  following 
farces:  "The  Beau  in  the  Suds,"  "The  Mock  Doc- 
tor," "The  Devil  to  Pay,"  "The  Walking  Statue," 
"The  Old  Man  Taught  Wisdom,"  "  Damon  and  Phil- 
lida,"  "  Hob  in  the  Well,"  and  "  Miss  in  Her  Teens." 
The  names  of  the  dramatis  persona,  were  not  printed  in 
the  play-bills,  for  the  reason,  probably,  that  the  same 
actor  had  to  play  different  parts  in  the  same  piece,  but 
from  references  made  to  individual  performers,  the  fol- 
lowing persons  are  known  to  have  been  members  of 
the  company  :  Kean  and  Murray,  the  joint  managers ; 


8  f  ic^t  €l)catcr  in  ^Unictica. 

Messrs.  Taylor,  Woodham,  Tremaine,  Jago,  Scott, 
Moore,  Marks,  and  Master  Dickey  Murray,  the  man- 
ager's son;  Miss  Nancy  George,  Miss  Osborne,  Mrs. 
Taylor,  Mrs.  Davis,  and  Mrs.  Osborne.  Kean,  Tre- 
maine, and  Jago  played  in  tragic  parts.  Murray  and 
Taylor  were  comedians.  Miss  Nancy  George  and  Miss 
Osborne  were  the  chief  ladies  in  comedy  and  tragedy. 
Woodham  and  Mrs.  Taylor  were  comedians  and  vo- 
calists, and  Kean,  like  his  more  distinguished  name- 
sake, Edmund  Kean,  appears  to  have  possessed  some 
musical  talent,  for  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  benefit 
he  announces  that  he  will  sing  "  an  oratorio."  Master 
Dickey  Murray  would  seem  to  have  been  a  favorite  of 
the  public.  The  other  actors  performed  in  subordinate 
parts. 


CURIOUS  ANNOUNCEMENTS. 

DURING  the  second  season,  which  lasted  for  six 
months,  they  had  repeated  the  same  plays  many 
times,  and  probably  having  nothing  new  or  more  at- 
tractive to  offer  for  another  season,  they  determined  to 
try  their  fortunes  elsewhere.  They  closed  with  a  series 
of  benefits,  and  some  of  the  appeals  made  respecting 
them  are  sufficiently  curious  to  be  noticed.  Mrs.  Da- 
vis announces  that  a  benefit  is  given  to  her  to  enable 
her  to  buy  off  her  time,  and  she  hopes  that  all  ladies 
and  gentlemen  who  are  charitably  inclined  will  favor 


fit^t  €\^catct  in  America. 


it, closing  in  legal  phraseology,  "and  their  luunble  pe- 
titioner, as  in  duty  bound,  will  ever  pray."  It  was  the 
constant  practice  at  that  time  for  masters  of  vessels  to 
bring  out  passengers  to  New  York  upon  the  condition 
that  they  should  be  sold  immediately  upon  their  arrival 
as  servants  to  any  person  who  would  pay  their  passage- 
money.  They  were  sold  for  a  definite  period  of  time  and 
were  called  Redemptioners,  of  which  class  Mrs.  Davis, 
from  her  earnest  appeal,  appears  to  have  been  one. 
Mr.  Jago  humbly  begs  that  all  gentlemen  and  ladies 
will  be  so  kind  as  to  favor  him  with  their  company,  as 
he  never  liad  a  benefit  before,  and  is  just  come  out  of 
prison;  and  Mrs.  Osborne  appropriately  selects  the 
play  of  "  The  Distressed  Mother,"  with  the  announce- 
ment that  it  is  the  first  time  this  poor  widow  has  had  a 
benefit,  and  having  met  with  divers  late  hardships  and 
misfortunes  she  appeals  to  the  benevolent  and  others. 
It  is  stated  in  Clapp's  "  Records "  that  Otway's 
"  Orphan  "  was  played  in  Boston,  in  the  Coffee  House 
in  State  street,  in  the  early  part  of  1750,  by  two  young 
Englishmen,  assisted  by  some  volunteer  comrades  of 
the  town ;  and  as  this  is  about  the  period  when  Murray 
&  Kean's  company  began  to  perform  in  New  York, 
this  may  possibly  have  been  an  initiatory  attempt  on 
the  part  of  some  of  the  members  of  that  company  to 
introduce  dramatic  amusements  among  the  people  of 
New  England.  Whether  it  was  so  or  not,  it  Avas  im- 
mediately followed  by  the  passage  of  an  act  by  the 
General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  in  March,  1750,  pro- 
hibiting stage  plays  and  theatrical  entertainments  of 
any  kind. 


lo  f  ir^t  <2r()catcr  in  5llnicrifa. 


A    NEW    COMPANY    IN    1751. 

IN  the  winter  of  1 75 1  another  company  came  to  New 
Yorkj  and  opened  the  theater  in  Nassau  street  on 
December  23,  1751,  with  "  Othello"  and  the  farce  of 
"  Lethe."  The  company  was  under  the  management 
of  a  Mr.  Upton,  and  in  all  probability  came  from  Ja- 
maica, in  a  vessel  which  had  arrived  a  short  time  be- 
fore. The  company  were  either  inferior  to  the  former, 
or  the  public  had  become  indifferent,  for  the  manager, 
after  performing  three  weeks,  announced  that,  to  his 
great  disappointment,  he  had  not  met  with  encourage- 
ment enough  to  support  the  company  for  the  season, 
and  that  he  would  bring  it  to  an  end  by  giving  a  few 
benefits.  Some  doubt  of  the  merits  of  the  new  per- 
formers seems  to  have  prevailed,  as  he  assured  the  pub- 
lic in  a  card  that  the  company  "  were  perfect,  and  hope 
to  perform  to  satisfaction."  It  was  the  custom  then 
for  the  actors  to  wait  upon  all  the  principal  inhabitants 
and  solicit  their  patronage,  and  fearing  that  he  had 
been  held  accountable  for  some  remissness  of  duty  in 
this  particular,  he  begs  the  public  to  remember  that 
"  he  is  an  absolute  stranger  in  the  city,  and  if  in  his 
appHcation  he  has  omitted  any  gentlemen  or  ladies' 
house  or  lodging,  he  humbly  hopes  that  they  will  im- 
pute it  to  his  want  of  information,  and  not  to  want  of 
respect."  But  though  he  produced  several  pieces  not 
yet  played  in  New  York,  such  as  "  The  Fair  Penitent," 
"  Venice  Preserved,"  "  The  Provoked  Husband/'  and 
"  Othello,"  it  was  of  no  avail.     A  few  benefits  were 


fit^t  €l)catcr  in  5Cmcrifa» 


given,  one  for  a  Mr.  Leigh,  another  one  for  the  poor 
widow  Osborne,  who,  with  Mr.  Tremaine  of  the 
former  company,  had  become  attached  to  this  one; 
and  on  March  27,  1752,  the  last  performance  took 
place  for  the  benefit  of  the  manager's  wife,  Mrs.  Up- 
ton. Upton  deHvered  a  farewell  epilogue,  and  a  few 
days  after  he  left  in  a  vessel  for  London. 


THE    DRAMA   IN    VIRGINIA   AND 
MARYLAND. 

THE  prior  company,  after  performing  in  Virginia, 
went  to  Annapolis,  the  capital  of  Maryland,  and 
erected  a  small  theater  there,  which  they  opened  on 
June  22,  1752,  with  "The  Beggar's  Opera,"  and  the 
farce  of  "  The  Lying  Valet."  Annapolis  was  at  this 
period  a  place  of  considerable  trade  and  commerce, 
with  a  thriving  population,  including  many  wealthy 
merchants,  and  being  the  capital  of  the  province,  was 
the  residence  of  the  leading  officials,  and  a  general 
place  of  resort  for  opulent  planters  and  their  families. 
There  was  among  the  people  a  great  deal  of  refine- 
ment and  cultivation.  They  were  much  more  dis- 
posed to  enjoy  the  recreation  of  the  theater  than  the 
mixed  English,  French,  and  Dutch  population  of  New 
York,  and  consequently  the  theater  there  was  a  per- 
manent institution,  and  continued  to  be  so  for  many 


12         fit^t  €t)catct  in  ^llniccica. 


years.  The  company  represented  the  same  plays 
which  they  had  before  acted  in  New  York,  with  the 
addition  of  "  Cato  "  and  "  The  Busybody  "  ;  and  after 
playing  for  a  season  they  gave  representations  in  other 
parts  of  Maryland.  Some  new  names  appear  among 
the  members,  such  as  Eyrarson,  Wynell,  and  Herbert, 
while  many  of  the  old  members  had  left,  a  circum- 
stance warranting  the  supposition  that  there  was  either 
another  company  then  performing  in  the  South,  or  that 
these  actors  had  returned  to  England  or  to  the  West 
Indies.  Among  the  remaining  members  were  Murray, 
Scott,  and  Miss  Osborne ;  and  Kean,  despite  his  formal 
farewell  in  New  York,  and  declaration  of  his  intention 
to  resume  his  original  occupation  of  a  writing-master, 
was  again  among  them,  representing  principal  parts. 
All  that  has  been  here  narrated  occurred  before  Hal- 
lam  came  to  this  country  and  gave  his  first  representa- 
tion at  Williamsburg,  Virginia,  in  the  autumn  of  1752. 
He  afterward  went  to  Annapolis,  and  in  the  summer 
of  1753  he  came  with  his  company  to  New  York. 
Finding  the  old  theater  in  Nassau  street  inadequate  to 
his  purpose,  he  took  the  building  down  and  erected 
upon  the  same  spot  what  the  newspaper  of  the  day, 
Parker's  "  Gazette,"  describes  "  as  a  very  fine,  large, 
and  commodious  new  theater,"  which  he  opened 
on  September  17,  1753,  with  Steele's  comedy  of  "The 
Conscious  Lovers "  and  the  farce  of  "  Damon  and 
Phillida."  Dunlap  says  that  it  was  erected  on  the 
spot  afterward  occupied  by  the  old  Dutch  Church 
(the  present  post-office).  In  this  he  was  also  mistaken, 
for  the  church  was  on  the  place  where  the  building 


fic^t  €f^catct  in  3llmcricn.  13 

now  stands  in  1729.  The  theater  which  Hallam  built, 
and  the  one  before  it,  were  on  the  east  side  of  Nassau 
street,  between  Maiden  lane  and  John  street. 


HALLAM'S  THEATER  IN   NASSAU  STREET. 

HALLAM'S  company  was  far  superior  to  any  that 
preceded  it.  Mrs.  Hallam  was  not  only  a  beau- 
tiful woman,  but  she  was  an  actress  of  no  ordinary 
merit.  Dunlap  in  his  youth  heard  old  ladies  speak  in 
raptures  of  her  beauty,  grace,  and  pathos.  Hallam 
was  himself  an  excellent  comedian,  and  two  other 
members  of  the  company,  Rigby  and  Malone,  were 
actors  of  established  reputation  upon  the  London 
boards.  The  arrival  of  a  complete  company  like  this, 
who  were  not  only  practised  in  their  art  but  amply 
provided  before  their  departure  with  dresses,  and  all 
that  was  necessary  for  effective  dramatic  representa- 
tion, was  something  too  formidable  to  contend  against. 
They  seem,  therefore,  to  have  entirely  supplanted  the 
earlier  pioneers,  of  whom  nothing  further  is  known  ex- 
cept that  some  of  their  number,  Murray,  Tremaine, 
Scott,  and  Miss  Osborne,  played  in  Hallam's  original 
company  afterward,  when  it  was  under  the  manage- 
ment of  Douglass. 

After  performing  in  New  York  for  the  winter,  Hal- 
lam went  with  his  company  to  Philadelphia  in  April, 


'4         ipir^t  ^fjcatcr  in  ^tmcrica. 


1754,  and  from  there  to  the  West  Indies,  where  he 
died.  In  1758  the  company  returned  to  New  York, 
under  the  management  of  Douglass,  who  had  married 
Hallam's  widow.  During  the  four  years  that  they  had 
been  absent  the  theater  remained  unoccupied,  and  a 
short  time  before  their  arrival  a  congregation  of  Ger- 
man Calvinists  had  ben  formed,  and  being  in  want  of 
a  place  of  worship  they  purchased  the  theater  in  Nas- 
sau street  for  $1250,  and  fitted  it  up  as  a  church, 
which  they  continued  to  occupy  until  1765,  when  the 
building,  which  had  not  been  a  very  substantial  one, 
becoming  decayed,  they  took  it  down  and  erected, 
upon  the  spot,  another  edifice,  which  was  standing 
fifteen  years  ago,  and  was  familiarly  known  as  Gos- 
ling's Eating  House,  Nos.  64  and  66  Nassau  street. 

Finding  that  the  theater  had  been  converted  into  a 
church,  Douglass  built  another  one  upon  Cruger's 
Wharf,  a  large  pier,  with  houses  upon  it,  which  at  that 
time  extended  from  Pearl  street  into  the  East  River, 
between  Old  and  Coenties  slips.  In  the  following 
year,  1759,  Douglass  went  to  Philadelphia,  where  he 
erected  a  small  theater,  and  from  there  to  Annapolis, 
where  he  built  a  very  fine  one  of  brick,  capable  of 
accommodating  between  five  and  six  hundred  people, 
which  he  opened  March  3,  1760. 


fit^t  Zf^cata  ill  ?llmcnca.  15 


THE    BEEKMAN    STREET   THEATER. 

IN  1761  Douglass  returned  to  New  York,  ami  aban- 
doning the  theater  ujjon  Cruger's  Wharf,  erected  one 
in  Beekman  street,  a  few  doors  below  Nassau  street. 
This  was  torn  down  in  a  riot  in  1764.  Three  years 
after,  the  theater  in  John  street,  between  Nassau  street 
and  Broadway,  was  built,  which  continued  to  be  the 
principal  one  until  the  erection  of  the  old  Park  Theater 
in  1797.* 

*  It  was  in  1766  and  not  in  1764  that  this  theater  in  Beekman 
street,  or,  as  it  was  then  called,  Chapel  street,  was  torn  down  in 
a  riot  growing  out  of  the  Stamp  Act.  The  bill  for  the  perform- 
ance that  night  was  "  May  5,  1 766, at  the  theatre  in  Chapel  Street, 
a  comedy  called  the  'Twin  Rivals,'  with  a  Song  in  praise  of 
liberty  and  the  King  and  the  Miller  of  Mansfield. 

"  N.  B.  As  the  packet  is  arrived  and  has  been  the  messenger 
of  good  news  relative  to  the  Repeal  it  is  hoped  the  public  has 
no  objection  to  the  above  performance  " —  a  hope  that  was  not 
fulfilled. 

Gabriel  Furman,  in  a  manuscript  history  of  the  New  York 
stage,  says,  "  about  the  year  1761  Phil  Miller,  well-known  in  the 
city  for  a  plodding,  active,  managing  man,  obtained  permission  of 
Governor  Colden  to  build  a  theatre  and  act  plays,  which  he  did 
in  Beekman  Street,  a  little  below  Nassau  Street.  This  was  a 
wooden  building,  in  poor  condition,  with  paper  scenery  and  a 
wretched  wardrobe.  The  whole  was  destroyed  by  a  mob,  created 
by  the  Stamp  Act.  Phil  Miller  lost  his  house  and  company.  He 
was  a  jocose  fellow  and  played  Justice  Gattle  with  great  humor." 


i6         f  ir^t  €j)catcr  in  ^Imcfica* 


SUrPLKMENT. 

VERY  early  information  respecting  the  drama  in 
North  America  is  found  in  a  letter  by  Chief  Jus- 
tice Samuel  Sewall  of  Massachusetts,  dated  March  2, 
1714,  in  which  he  protests  against  the  acting  of  a  play 
in  the  Council  Chamber  at  Boston,  affirming  that  even 
the  Romans,  fond  as  they  were  of  plays,  were  not  "so 
far  set  upon  them  as  to  turn  their  Senate  House  into 
a  Play-House."  "  Let  not  Christian  Boston,"  he  con- 
tinues, "  goe  beyond  Heathen  Rome  in  the  practice 
of  Shamefull  Vanities." 

Some  account  of  this  early  opponent  of  the  Ameri- 
can drama  may  not  be  out  of  place  here,  as  he  was  an 
interesting  character.  He  was  born  in  England  and 
came  to  New  England  with  his  parents,  who  settled 
in  Newbury,  Massachusetts.  After  graduating  at  Har- 
vard College  he  entered  the  ministry,  which  vocation 
he  left  after  a  short  time  and  took  charge  of  the  print- 
ing-press in  Boston,  which  was  under  his  management 
for  three  years.  He  had  also  other  public  trusts.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  Council,  a  judge  of  the  Court  of 
Probates,  and  afterward  became  Chief  Justice  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. As  a  judge  he  took  part  in  what  is  known 
as  the  Salem  Witchcraft  Trials,  and  is  said  to  have 
been  the  only  one  of  the  judges  who  publicly  confessed 
his  error.  In  1697,  five  years  after  these  trials,  he  pre- 
pared a  written  confession,  which  was  read  to  the  con- 
gregation of  the  old  South  Church  in  Boston  by  the 


fit^t  <2rt)cntcr  in  ^Cmcrifa.  n 

minister,  the  judge,  during  the  reading,  standing  up  in 
his  place,  and  during  the  remaining  thirty-one  years 
ot  liis  Hfe  he  spent  one  day  annually  in  fasting,  medi- 
tation, and  prayer,  to  keep  in  mind  a  sense  of  the 
enormity  of  his  offense.  This  public  exhibition  of  re- 
morse was  what  might  be  expected  on  the  part  of  a 
truly  conscientious  man,  for  the  drama  to  which  he  was 
so  much  opposed  has  not  often  been  used  for  the  ficti- 
tious representation  of  scenes  more  harrowing  than 
those  he  witnessed  and  took  part  in  in  Salem ;  scenes 
that  find  their  counterpart  to-day  only  among  the 
superstitious  savages  of  Western  Africa. 

The  minister  of  the  church  in  the  village  of  Salem, 
who  had  had  a  bitter  strife  with  a  portion  of  his  con- 
gregation, got  up  this  accusation  of  witchcraft,  as  a 
means  of  vengeance  in  which  he  was  both  accuser  and 
witness,  prompting  the  answers  of  other  witnesses  and 
acting  as  recorder  to  the  magistrates,  in  which  he  was 
supported  throughout  by  Cotton  Mather.  Within  less 
than  two  months  twenty  persons  were  tried,  con- 
demned, and  hanged,  among  them  five  women  of 
blameless  lives,  all  declaring  their  innocence.  A  min- 
ister was  hanged  as  a  witch  for  declaring  that  there 
could  be  no  such  thing  as  witchcraft,  "  an  opinion," 
says  Bancroft,  that  "  wounded  the  self-love  of  the 
judges,  for  it  made  them  the  accusers  and  judicial 
murderers  of  the  innocent."  Fifty-five  persons  were 
tortured  or  terrified  into  confession.  "  With  accusa- 
tions," continues  the  historian,  "  confessions  increased, 
and  with  confessions  new  accusations."  The  jails  were 
full.     No  one  that  confessed  after  condemnation  was 


i8  first  CJcatcc  in  ^tmcrica, 

hanged,  but  those  who  retracted  after  confession  were. 
A  minister  of  the  gospel  is  recorded  as  saying  :  "  There 
hang  eight  firebrands  of  hell !  "  pointing  to  the  bodies 
swinging  on  the  gallows,*  and  the  writer  of  a  produc- 
tion which  exposed  the  whole  proceeding  to  ridicule, 
and  was  chiefly  instrumental  in  putting  an  end  to  it, 
was  denounced  as  "  a  coal  from  hell  "  by  Cotton 
Mather,  who,  through  religious  vanity,  credulity,  self- 
righteousness,  ambition,  or  all  combined,  while  he 
ceased  subsequently  to  repeat  the  statements  or  ac- 
cusations, unlike  Sewall,  made  no  acknowledgment 
thereafter  of  his  error. 

This  striking  example  of  judicial  conscientiousness 
on  the  part  of  Sewall  was  not  a  single  characteristic 
of  this  Puritan  chief  justice,  for  in  addition  to  being  an 
able  man,  he  was  also  a  benevolent  one,  whose  warm- 
est sympathies  were  with  the  down-trodden  and  op- 
pressed. In  1700  he  published  a  tract  entitled  "The 
Selling  of  Joseph,"  in  which  he  advocated  the  rights 
of  the  slaves  in  the  Colonies,  and  to  that  extent  may 
be  regarded  as  one  of  the  pioneers  in  this  country  in 
the  long  struggle  for  negro  emancipation.  He  was  the 
author  of  several  publications  upon  religious  subjects, 
and  of  one  upon  the  Kennebec  Indians,  but  at  the  pres- 
ent day  is  chiefly  known  for  a  diary  published  by  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society  that  he  kept  during 
the  larger  part  of  his  life,  which,  in  addition  to  being 
entertaining,  sheds  much  light  upon  the  manners, 
habits,  and  social  state  of  New  England  at  that  period. 

*  3  Bancroft's  "  History,"  n.  s.,  chap.  19. 


fit^t  Cljcatcr  in  5llmcirica.  19 

It  may  fairly  be  assumed  that  wliat  he  protested 
against  did  not  take  place^  for  if  the  play  had  been 
acted  in  the  Council  Chamber  some  account  of  it  or 
reference  to  it  would,  in  all  probability,  have  come 
down  to  us. 

While  preparing  my  former  paper  I  met  with  certain 
statements  that  satisfied  me  that  English  actors  had 
been  in  the  West  Indies  by  whom  plays  had  been  per- 
formed there,  but  at  how  early  a  period,  or  whether 
they  or  any  of  them  had  come  to  the  North  American 
colonies  and  had  been  members  of  the  companies  re- 
ferred to  in  the  paper,  I  had  not  been  able  to  ascertain, 
but  I  afterwards  found  that  it  appears  by  a  Barbadoes 
newspaper  of  March  i8,  1731,  that  in  1728  some 
gendemen  in  Barbadoes  acted  plays,  the  names  of 
Mr.  Vaughan  and  Mr.  Rice  being  given ;  the  former 
of  whom  delivered  a  prologue  and  the  latter  an 
epilogue;  I  was  also  disposed  to  think  that  in  1732 
they  had  a  theater  there,  for  it  appeared  by  a  news- 
paper of  that  year  that  on  August  16,  1732,  "The 
Royal  Consort "  was  acted,  that  the  prologue  was 
spoken  by  a  Mr.  John  Snow,  and  the  epilogue  would 
appear  by  a  Miss  Whiten,  who  are  referred  to  as  new 
comers  to  the  island.* 

Mr.  Thomas  J.  McKee,  of  the  city  of  New  York, 
however,  possesses  a  small  quarto  volume,  now  ex- 
tremely rare,  published  in  the  eighteenth  century  by 
Anthony  Aston,  or,  as  he  was  generally  known,  Tony 
Aston,  who  had  been  an  actor  in  the  West  Indies  and 

*  "  Caribbeana,"  Vol  i,  p.  380.     London,  1741. 


20         fit^t  €jjcatcr  in  ^llmctica. 


afterward  came  to  Virginia  and  New  York,  who,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  statement,  acted  in  the  city  of 
New  York  in  1702.  He  may  have  been  one  of  those 
who  were  to  act  the  play  referred  to  by  Chief  Justice 
Sewall  in  the  Boston  Council  Chamber  in  17 14,  but  it 
will  not  be  necessary  to  dwell  further  here  upon  this 
information  or  indulge  in  any  conjectures  respecting 
it,  as  Mr.  McKee  has  written  a  paper  upon  Aston  and 
his  career,  which  is  to  be  published  by  the  Dunlap 
Society. 

The  first  representation,  in  North  America,  of  a  play, 
as  far  as  known,  occurred  in  17 18  in  Williamsburg,  then 
the  capital  of  Virginia.  It  is  mentioned  in  a  letter  by 
Governor  Spottiswood  dated  June  24,  17 18.  Spottis- 
wood  was  governor  of  Virginia  from  17 10  to  1722,  and 
though  popular  with  the  people  is  described  as  "  imperi- 
ous and  contemptuous," characteristics  which,  no  doubt, 
led  to  what  he  details  in  the  letter  in  which  he  refers  to 
this  theatrical  performance,  characteristics  which  may 
have  beenjustifiedif,  ashesaid  in  oneof  his  letters,  "the 
people  had  elected  to  the  House  of  Burgesses  a  set  of 
representatives  whom  Heaven  has  not  generally  en- 
doAved  with  the  ordinary  qualifications  requisite  in 
legislators,  and  who  placed  at  the  head  of  standing 
committees  men  who  could  neither  spell  English,  nor 
write  common  sense." 

In  this  letter  of  June  24,  1718,  he  refers  to  eight 
members  of  the  House  of  Assembly,  who  slighted  an 
invitation  to  his  house  at  an  entertainment  that  he  gave. 
He  could  not  prevail  upon  any  one  of  them  to  pay  him 
"  the  common  compliment  of  a  visit,  when,"  he  writes, 


jfir^t  €l)catcr  in  3llmcrica.  21 

"  in  order  to  the  solemnizing  His  Majesty's  birthday,  1 
gave  a  public  entertainment  at  my  house,  and  all  gen- 
tlemen that  would  come  were  admitted,  these  eight 
committeemen  would  neither  come  to  my  house  nor 
go  to  the  play  which  was  acted  on  the  occasion"  but  on 
the  contrary,  he  says,  "  these  eight  committeemen  got 
together  all  the  turbulent  and  disappointed  burghers  to 
an  entertainment  of  their  own  in  the  House  of  Bur- 
gesses, and  invited  the  mob,  and  plentifully  supplied  it 
with  liquor,  to  drink  the  same  health  as  was  drunk  in 
the  governor's  house,  taking  no  more  notice  of  the  gov- 
ernor than  if  there  had  been  none  in  the  place."* 

What  this  play  was  or  when  it  was  performed  does 
not  appear,  but  where  it  was  acted  may  be  conjectured, 
as  will  subsequently  appear. 

Graham  in  his  "  History  of  the  United  States  of 
North  America,"  published  in  London  in  1736,1  in 
describing  Williamsburg,  the  capital  of  Virginia,  in  the 
early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  says  that  "  it  con- 
tained a  theater  for  dramatic  performances,  the  first 
institution  of  the  kind  in  the  British  colonies."  He 
does  not  state  from  what  source  he  obtained  this  infor- 
mation, but  as  he  quotes  a  passage  from  a  work  enti- 
tled "  The  Present  State  of  Virginia,"  by  Hugh  Jones, 
published  in  London  in  1 724,  "  the  substance  of  which," 
he  states,  "  is  embraced  in  the  second  volume  of 
Oldmixon's  British  Colonies,"  he  probably  knew  noth- 

*  Spottiswood's  Letters,  collections  of  tlie  Virginia  Historical 
Society,  Vol.  ii,  p.  284. 

t  "  History  of  the  United  States  of  North  America,"  Vol.  iii,  p. 
146,  147  :  London,  1836. 


22         fit^t  Z^catct  in  3llmtTica» 

ing  respecting  this  theater  except  what  he  found  in  01  d- 
mixon.  Rich,  the  bibHographer,  says  that  Jones's  work 
is  one  of  the  rarest  books  relating  to  Virginia  that  was 
pubhshed  in  the  eighteenth  century.  In  1865,  the  late 
bookseller  Sabin,  of  New  York,  reprinted  a  few  copies 
of  it  in  facsimile,  and  this  reprint  has  suppHed  the  in- 
formation that  warrants  Graham's  statement  that  this 
was  the  first  theater  erected  in  North  America. 

Jones  was  a  fellow  of  William  and  Mary  College 
in  Williamsburg,  Virginia,  afterward  a  professor  of 
mathematics  in  this  college,  and,  as  appears  from  the 
title-page  of  his  book,  was  also  chaplain  of  the  House 
of  Burgesses  of  Virginia  and  minister  of  the  Episcopal 
church  at  Jamestown,  which  was  in  close  proximity 
to  Williamsburg,  the  capital. 

The  work  contains  a  chapter  wholly  devoted  to  that 
capital,  in  which,  after  describing  the  situation  and 
plan  of  the  town,  William  and  Mary  College,  the  State 
House,  the  church,  which  he  says  "is  adorned  as  the 
best  church  in  London,"  he  continues  as  follows: 
"  Next  there  is  a  large  octagon  Tower  which  is  the 
Magazine  or  Repository  of  Arms  and  Ammunition, 
standing  far  from  any  house  except  Jamestown  Court 
House,  for  the  town  is  half  in  Jamestown  County  and 
half  in  York  County.  Not  far  from  hence  is  a  large 
area  for  a  Market  Place,  near  which  is  a  T'/ay  House 
and  good  Bowling  Green." 

The  play-house,  from  the  manner  in  which  he  refers 
to  it,  was  evidently  regarded  by  him  as  one  of  the 
prominent  things  of  the  town,  and  as  such  worthy  of 
being  enumerated  with  the  other  public  structures. 


f  ir^t  Cljcatcr  in  5tnicnrn.  23 

such  as  the  College,  the  State  House,  and  the  Govern- 
or's House,  which  Graham  says  was  then  "  accounted 
the  most  magnificent  structure  in  North  America." 
But  there  is  nothing  furtlier  resi)ecting  the  play-house, 
except  the  fact  that  it  was  in  existence  in  1722,  for 
Jones  had  been  but  two  years  away  from  Virginia 
when  he  published  his  book  in  London  in  1724.  That 
nothing  more  should  be  found  respecting  it  is  not  re- 
markable, for  in  that  early  colonial  period  local  occur- 
rences were  seldom  mentioned  in  the  small-sized  jour- 
nals that  existed,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  were 
generally  known  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  or 
place,  and  were  not,  therefore,  news  like  intelligence 
from  London  or  Boston.  There  was,  moreover,  no 
newspaper  in  Virginia  until  1732,  when  the  Virginia 
"  Gazette,"  which  is  described  as  a  small  dingy  sheet 
with  few  items  of  news  was  published.*  In  fact,  there 
was  not  at  this  time  a  printing-press  in  the  colony,  nor, 
until  many  years  thereafter,  even  a  bookseller's  shop, 
although  there  were  then  in  Boston  five  printing- 
presses  and  many  booksellers.t 

Mr.  Edward  Eggleston,  in  an  interesting  paper,  en- 
titled "  Social  Life  in  the  Colonies,"  contributed  to  "The 
Century  Magazine  "  of  July,  1883,  says  that  mention 
is  made  of  a  play  on  the  King's  birthday  at  Williams- 
burg, in  1 7 18,  which  I  suppose  refers  to  the  one  men- 
tioned in  Governor  Spottiswood's  letter. 

Theodore  L.  Chase,  in  an  article  in  one  of  the  pub- 

*  Cookes  "  History  of  the  People  of  Virginia,"  Boston,  1890. 
t  Graham's"  History  of  the  United  States  of  North  America," 
Vol.  i,  p.  145,  and  note  i :  London,  1836. 


24  fiv^t  Cljcatcr  in  51inifrifa. 


lie  journals,  after  calling  attention  to  Jones's  work  of 
1724,  "The  Present  State  of  Virginia,"  says  that  he 
finds  in  the  Virginia  "  Gazette  "  of  September  10,  1736, 
a  statement  that  the  young  gentlemen  of  William  and 
Mary  College  were  to  enact  that  evening  the  tragedy 
of  "  Cato,"  and  that  therefore,  at  the  hour  stated,  the 
comedies  of  "  The  Busybody,"  "  The  Recruiting  Offi- 
cer," and  "  The  Beaux'  Stratagem  "  were  to  be  enacted 
by  the  company,  from  which  he  infers  that  the  play- 
house mentioned  by  Jones  was  still  in  existence,  and 
that  the  "  company  "  who  were  to  enact  the  comedies 
mentioned  were  not,  as  I  understand  him,  the  students 
of  the  college,  but  an  organized  theatrical  company, 
who  were  then  performing  in  Williamsburg,  where  a 
theater  had  been  built. 

It  would  be  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of  things 
that  a  play-house  like  this,  close  to  the  market-place, 
should  have  been  erected  for  occasional  performances 
by  amateurs.  A  hall  in  the  college  would  have  suf- 
ficed for  such  a  purpose,  as  the  halls  in  old  mansions 
and  other  structures  in  England  were  used  for  such 
incidental  occasions.  It  is  more  probable  that  it  was 
an  ordinary  theater,  where  plays  were  performed  by 
professional  actors. 

There  are  many  circumstances  that  lead  to  that  con- 
clusion. The  Virginians  were  a  very  different  people 
from  the  Puritans  of  New  England,  and  had  none  of 
the  repugnance  to  stage  plays  that  prevailed  among 
the  latter.  They  had  not,  like  the  Puritans,  fled  to  the 
wilds  of  America  that  they  might  enjoy  unmolested 
their  religious  behefs,  and  carry  out  their  own  ideas  of 


fit^t  €()cntcr  in  America.  25 

religion  and  civil  government,  but  persons  who  had 
gone  to  Virginia  simply  to  better  their  condition.  As 
Bancroft  has  described  them,  they  were  "  a  continua- 
tion of  English  society,  who  were  attached  to  the 
monarchy,  with  a  deep  reverence  for  the  English 
church,  and  a  love  for  England  and  English  institu- 
tions." Upon  the  overthrow  of  Charles  I.,  the  loyal- 
ists in  considerable  numbers  emigrated  to  Virginia, 
many  of  whom,  as  the  same  writer  says,  brought  to  the 
colony  the  culture  and  education  that  belonged  to  the 
English  gentry  of  that  day. 

The  descendants  of  these  cavalier  emigrants  were, 
at  the  time  to  which  this  inquiry  relates, —  the  early 
portion  of  the  eighteenth  century, —  the  dominant 
class,  politically  and  socially,  in  the  colony.  They 
lived  upon  large  plantations,  isolated  from  each  other, 
sparsely  spread  over  a  wide  territory,  so  that  each 
plantation  might  have  the  advantage  of  close  proxim- 
ity to  water  for  the  transportation  of  tobacco,  which 
was  the  chief  product  raised  by  them  for  export.  In 
this  respect  the  province  was  particularly  well  adapted 
for  settlement  in  this  way,  as  it  was  traversed  not  only 
by  long  rivers,  but  had  flowing  into  their  main  arteries 
innumerable  creeks  and  short  streams,  which  were 
navigable  for  vessels  of  moderate  draught,  so  that  they 
had  not  to  leave  their  plantations  to  ship  or  dispose  of 
their  produce,  but  could  load  it  at  the  doors  of  their 
own  warehouses.* 

The   facilities   which   the  physical  features  of  the 

*  Graham,  p.  146. 


26         5ric^t  CJjcatcc  in  ^titicrica* 

country  afforded  for  easy  transportation  by  water, 
rendered  it  unnecessary,  as  in  New  England,  to  settle 
largely  in  towns  or  villages,  for  the  plantations,  being 
large  and  well  peopled,  especially  after  slaves  had  been 
introduced  from  Africa  to  cultivate  them,  a  plantation 
had  the  ordinary  facilities  of  a  village  or  town  ;  and  as 
the  proprietor  and  his  family  were  not  required  to  labor, 
there  was  much  intercourse  among  the  planters,  with 
the  enjoyment  of  sports  and  amusements,  for  which  they 
had  alike  the  leisure  and  the  disposition.  It  was  a  state 
of  things  that  in  time  brought  about  a  landed  aristoc- 
racy, that  divided  society  into  two  classes,  the  land- 
owners or  gentry,  and  their  dependants  or  servants. 

It  was  customary  then,  especially  in  London,  for 
men  as  well  as  women  who  had  lost  reputation  to 
emigrate  to  Virginia,  where,  by  a  life  of  industry, 
they  might  retrieve  their  character  and  improve  their 
worldly  condition,  as  a  life  of  industry  there  brought 
with  it  no  reproach,  which  was  not  the  case  in  London, 
where,  at  that  time,  to  labor  for  subsistence  involved 
the  loss  of  caste.  Others  were  transported  thither 
as  a  punishment  for  crime,  a  class  described  by  Jones 
as  "  the  poorest,  idlest,  worst  of  mankind,"  but  insig- 
nificant in  number  when  compared  with  the  shoal  of 
slaves  from  Africa,  by  whom  the  hardest  amount  of 
the  labor  was  performed. 

Jones,  describing  the  white  population  of  the  Colony 
at  this  period  says :  "  They  were,  for  the  most  part, 
comely,  handsome  persons,  of  good  features  and  fine 
complexions,  wearing  the  best  of  clothes  according  to 
their  stations   and   sometimes   beyond   their   circum- 


5f ir^t  Cljcatcr  in  5llmcrica»  27 

stances."  He  further  describes  them  as  "  bright  and 
of  excellent  sense,  speaking  good  English,  without  any 
idiom,  sharp  in  trade,  conversing  with  ease  upon  com- 
mon subjects,  and  though  of  excellent  natural  capacity 
diverted  by  business  or  inclination  from  profound  study 
or  prying  into  the  depth  of  things ;  more  incUned  to 
read  men  by  business  and  conversation  than  to  dive 
into  books ;  desirous  only  of  learning  what  was  abso- 
lutely necessary  and  in  the  shortest  way ;  who,  through 
their  quick  apprehension,  had,  though  it  was  superfi- 
cial, a  sufficiency  of  knowledge  and  fluency  of  tongue." 

He  describes  the  planters  generally  as  "  indolent 
and  hospitable,  leading  easy  lives,  and  not  much 
admiring  labor  or  any  manly  exercise  except  horse  rac- 
ing, nor  any  diversion  except  cock  fighting."  Fi- 
nally, he  says  :  "  The  habits  of  life,  customs,  etc.,  of  the 
inhabitants  were  much  the  same  as  about  London, 
which  they  esteem  their  home,  with  a  contempt  for 
every  other  part  of  Great  Britain." 

After  long  struggles  and  many  serious  trials  Vir- 
ginia was  then  in  a  very  flourishing  condition.  "  This 
country,"  says  Jones  in  the  introduction  to  his  book, 
"  has  altered  wonderfully,  and  far  more  advanced  and 
improved  in  all  respects  in  late  years  than  in  the  whole 
century  before,"  and  this  prosperity  was  especially 
felt  in  Williamsburg,  which,  though  small  in  respect 
to  resident  population,  was  the  only  town,  for  Rich- 
mond and  Petersburgh  were  not  laid  out  until  1733, 
and  was  the  capital  of  a  widely  extended  province;  it 
was  where  the  Governor  resided,  where  the  twelve 
Councillors  or  upper  house  and  the  House  of  Burgesses 


28         fit^t  Cljcatct  in  5limccica» 

assembled  for  legislative  purposes,  where  the  Law 
Courts  were  held,  and  where  what  might  be  called  the 
gentry  went,  as  Jones  states,  for  pleasure.  He  says 
that  "  they  had  balls  and  assemblies  at  the  Governor's 
House,  with  as  fine  an  entertainment  as  he  had  seen 
anywhere ;  "  that  the  public  buildings,  the  chief  of 
which  was  the  College,  were  excelled  by  few  of  their 
kind  in  England ;  that  the  stores  in  the  town  were 
stocked  with  all  sorts  of  rich  goods;  that  they  had  a 
number  of  artificers  and  convenient  ordinaries  or  inns 
for  the  accommodation  of  strangers;  that  the  dwelling- 
houses,  some  of  which  were  of  brick,  but  chiefly  of  wood, 
were  large  and  commodious,  lasting  and  dry,  so  that 
they  were  warm  in  winter  and  cool  in  summer;  that 
the  town  was  laid  out  in  square  lots,  each  one  large 
enough  for  a  house  and  garden,  so  that  they  had  not  to 
build  their  houses  close  together  as  in  other  towns, 
thus  affording  a  free  circulation  of  air  and  diminishing 
in  case  of  fire  the  danger  of  destruction.  Several  of 
what  he  calls  good  families  resided  permanently  in 
the  capital,  and  others  during  what  he  calls  the 
"  public  time."  They  live,  he  says,  "  in  the  same  neat 
manner,  dress  after  the  same  modes,  and  behave  them- 
selves exactly  as  the  gentry  of  London ;  most  families 
of  any  note  having  their  coach,  chariot,  Berlin  or 
chaise,  and  dwelling,  as  he  finally  says,  "  comfortably, 
genteelly,  pleasantly,  and  plentifully  in  this  delightful, 
healthful,  and  (I  hope)  thriving  city  of  Williamsburg." 

Cooke,  in  his  "  History  of  the  People  of  Virginia," 
describes  Williamsburg  at  about  the  middle  of  the  last 
century  in  the  winter  as  the  scene  of  much  that  was 


fit^t  ^^mct  ill  America.         29 

brilliant  and  attractive  in  Virginia  society.  "  It  was," 
he  says,  "  the  habit  of  the  planters  to  go  there  with 
their  families  at  this  season,  to  enjoy  the  pleasures 
of  the  Capital,  and  one  of  the  highways,  Gloucester, 
was  an  animated  spectacle  of  coaches  and  four,  con- 
taining the  nabobs  and  their  dames;  of  maidens  in  silk 
and  lace,  with  high  healed-shoes  and  clocked  stock- 
ings. All  these  people  were  engaged  in  attending  the 
assemblies  at  the  palace,  in  dancing  at  the  Appolo,  in 
snatching  the  pleasures  of  the  moment  and  enjoying 
life  under  a  regime  that  seemed  mad  for  enjoy- 
ment." ,  .  .  The  violins  seemed  to  be  ever  playing 
for  the  diversion  of  the  youths  and  maidens;  cocks 
were  fighting,  horsemen  riding,  students  mingled  in 
the  throng  in  their  academic  dress,  and  his  Serene 
Excellency  went  to  open  the  House  of  Burgesses  in 
his  coach,  drawn  by  six  milk-white  horses.  It  was  a 
scene  full  of  gaiety  and  abandon,  and  Williamsburg 
was  never  more  brilliant  than  at  this  period.* 

I  have  been  thus  particular  in  describing  the  place 
and  its  inhabitants  to  show  that  it  was  just  the  kind 
of  capital  that  had  alike  the  taste  and  the  means  to 
erect  and  support  a  theater,  if  not  regularly,  at  least 
for  a  certain  period  of  the  year,  or  what,  in  theatrical 
parlance,  is  called  a  "  season."  Although,  according 
to  another  writer,  it  had  only  about  eighty  houses  and 
consequently  but  a  small  resident  population,  there 
must  have  been  a  considerable  influx  of  visitors  for 
business  or  pleasure,  and  this  is  the  class  upon  which 

*  Part  III,  ch.  6. 


3°         fit^t  €t)catcr  in  5£mmca» 


a  theater  is  chiefly  dependent  for  support.  Mr.  Gais- 
ford,  in  his  historical  sketch  of  "  The  Drama  in  New 
Orleans,"  after  remarking  that  perhaps  in  no  city  of 
the  world  of  such  a  limited  population  were  there  so 
many  edifices  for  dramatic  purposes  as  in  New  Orleans, 
—  not  temporary  structures,  but  for  the  most  part 
solid,  substantial  buildings, —  accounts  for  this  circum- 
stance by  the  fact  that  in  the  winter  months  the  Cres- 
cent City  was  a  great  rendezvous  for  strangers,  young 
men  attracted  there  by  the  prospect  of  commercial 
employment ;  skilful  mechanics  who  were  largely  re- 
munerated ;  and  an  immense  number  of  transient  per- 
sons with  ample  means  and  good  incomes  who,  being 
without  acquaintances  or  at  least  without  friends,  could 
not  enjoy  themselves  in  so  rational  a  manner  as  in  a  well 
conducted  theater,  who,  he  says,  "  could  always  be  re- 
lied upon  and  were  the  main  support  of  such  establish- 
ments."* Something  of  this  kind  would  then,  neces- 
sarily, exist  in  Williamsburg,  as  the  social,  political, 
and  business  center  of  Virginia.  The  people  had,  as 
Jones  remarks,  the  habits  and  tastes  of  the  British  me- 
tropolis, and  in  London,  at  that  time,  no  taste  was  more 
general  or  widely  diffused  than  a  taste  for  the  drama. 
Some  of  the  most  renowned  of  English  players  were 
then  upon  the  stage,  such  as  CoUey  Cibber,  Wilks, 
Barton  Booth,  Johnson,  Bullock,  Quin,  Macklin,  Mrs. 
Porter,  and  Mrs.  Oldfield,  and  Betterton;  Doggett,  Mrs. 
Barry,  and  Mrs.  Bracegirdle  had  but  recently  left  it. 

*"The  Drama  in  New  Orleans,"  by  John  Gaisford,  etc.,  pp. 
7,  8.     New  Orleans,  1849. 


fir^eft  Ctjcatcr  in  5tnicrica»  31 

The  licentiousness  that  had  prevailed  alike  in  the  com- 
position and  representation  of  plays  was  rapidly  pass- 
ing away  and  a  better  class  of  persons  went  to  the 
theater.  Addison,  writing  at  this  period,  says:  "I 
cannot  be  of  the  opinion  of  the  reformers  of  manners 
in  their  severity  toward  plays;  but  must  allow  that 
a  good  play,  acted  before  a  well-bred  audience,  must 
raise  very  proper  incitement  to  good  behaviour,  and 
be  the  most  quick  and  the  most  prevailing  method  of 
giving  young  people  a  turn  of  sense  and  breeding. 

"  When,"  he  continues,  "  the  character  drawn  by  a 
judicious  poet  is  presented  by  the  person,  the  manner, 
the  look,  and  the  motion  of  an  accomplished  player, 
what  may  not  be  brought  to  pass  by  seeing  generous 
things  performed  before  our  eyes  ?  The  stage  is  the 
best  mirror  of  human  life ;  let  me  therefore  recom- 
mend the  oft  use  of  a  theatre  as  the  most  agreeable 
and  easy  method  of  making  a  polite  and  moral  gentry, 
which  would  end  in  rendering  the  rest  of  the  people 
regular  in  their  behaviour  and  ambitious  of  laudable 
undertakings."  * 

The  stage  was  then  approximating  to  what  Addison 
would  have  it.  In  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  an  act 
was  passed  forbidding  anything  to  be  represented 
upon  it  that  was  derogatory  to  religion  under  the 
penalty  of  being  deprived  of  the  right  to  act,  and  at 
no  period,  before  or  since,  did  the  stage  exercise  so 
much  influence  over  all  classes  of  society  in  London. 
It  was  the  standard  or  model  for  dress  and  manners, 

*  Davies,  "  Dramatic  Miscellanies,"  Vol.  iii,  ch.  17. 


32         f  ir^t  Zf^cata  in  ^nicnca* 

for  dress  and  manners  were  matters  of  much  more  im- 
portance socially  then  than  they  are  now;  and  these 
social  habits  and  tastes  were  transported  across  the 
Atlantic,  at  least  to  Virginia,  as  appears  from  the  ac- 
count which  Jones  gives  of  the  people  of  Williamsljurg, 
and  we  know  from  other  sources  that  among  the  bet- 
ter classes,  not  only  in  Virginia  but  in  many  of  the 
other  colonies,  great  attention  was  paid  to  dress,  to  the 
cultivation  of  manners,  and  to  the  art  of  conversation. 
A  comparatively  small  expenditure  was  all  that  was 
necessary  for  erecting  a  suitable  theater,  or  convert- 
ing a  warehouse  or  other  building  into  one.  Theaters 
in  English  towns  were  then,  as  they  are  at  the  present 
day  in  the  small  towns  in  Germany,  humble  and  inex- 
pensive structures.  The  compensation  of  actors,  save 
in  exceptionable  instances,  was  then  very  small.  It 
supplied  little  more  than  a  subsistence,  and  even  that 
was  precarious.  It  was  small  even  in  London.  Bet- 
terton,  who  has  been  called  the  greatest  actor,  except 
Garrick,  the  English  stage  has  ever  known, — who.  Col- 
ley  Gibber  says,  "  was,  as  an  actor,  what  Shakespeare 
was  as  an  author,  without  a  competitor," — never  re- 
ceived more  than  four  pounds  a  week,  and  though  a  man 
of  economical  habits  and  exemplary  life,  died,  after  a 
career  upon  the  stage  of  half  a  century,  in  limited  cir- 
cumstances. Yet,  notwithstanding  the  smallness  of 
their  pecuniary  reward,  players  were  never  wanting; 
the  stage  has  such  a  fascination  for  those  who  have  an 
aptitude  for  it  and  occasionally  for  those  who  have  but 
little,  that  a  life  of  laborious  diligence  and  pecuniary 
struggle  is  willingly  undergone  for  the  nightly  pleasure 


f  ir^t  ^Ijcatcc  in  3llmccica»  33 

of  ai)pcaring  before  the  footlights  and  sliaring  in  tlie 
mimic  scene. 

It  may  not  unreasonably  be  supposed,  then,  that  at 
an  early  period  members  of  this  ill-requited  profession 
made  their  way  to  Virginia,  like  others  with  whom  the 
world  had  gone  hard,  and  found  among  a  people  of 
London  habits  and  London  tastes  sufficient  induce- 
ment to  get  a  company  together,  and  open  a  theater  in 
a  capital  that  then  contained  the  most  aristocratic  and 
cultivated  society  in  the  colonies. 

I  stated  in  the  paper  here  reprinted  that  it  appeared 
l)y  an  advertisement  in  Bradford's  "Gazette,"  in  1733, 
that  a  play-house  existed  in  New  York  in  that  year,  and 
that  this  reference  was  all  that  I  had  found  respecting  it. 
Some  years  afterward  Mr.  T.  F.  De  Voe,  to  whom  I 
have  before  referred,  and  who  is  more  generally  known 
as  the  author  of  the  "  Market  Book,"  informed  me  by 
letter  that  he  had  found  in  the  "  New  England  and 
Boston  Gazette"  of  January  i,  1733,  under  the  head 
of  New  York  News  of  December  11,  1732,  the  fol- 
lowing  account   of  the   opening   of  this   theater  in 

1732. 

"  On  the  6th  instant,  the  ATew  Theatre  in  the  build- 
ing of  the  Hon.  Rip  Van  Dam,  Esq.,  was  opened 
with  the  comedy  of  the  Recruiting  Officer,  the  part  of 
Worthy  acted  by  the  ingenious  Mr.  Thos.  Heady, 
Barber  and  Peruque  maker  to  his  Honor." 

That  it  is  referred  to  in  this  paragraph  as  the  New 

Theater  would  seem  to  imply  that  there  had  been  a 

previous  one,  or  some  building  or  place  where  dramatic 

performances  were  given.     Governor  Burnet,  who  had 

5 


34         fit^t  €f)catcr  in  ^Hmcrica. 


been  the  governor  of  the  Colony  from  1720  to  1728, 
was  a  highly  cultivated  man.  He  is  described  by 
Smith,  the  first  historian  of  New  York,  as  "  a  man  of 
sense  and  of  polite  breeding,  a  well-read  scholar, 
sprightly,  and  of  a  social  disposition.  Being  devoted  to 
his  books,  he  abstained  from  all  those  excesses  into 
which  his  pleasurable  relish  would  have  otherwise 
plunged  him.  He  studied  the  art  of  recommending 
himself  to  the  people,  had  nothing  of  the  moroseness 
of  a  scholar,  was  gay  and  condescending,  affected  no 
pomp,  visited  every  family  of  reputation,  and  often 
diverted  himself  in  open  converse  with  the  ladies,  by 
whom  he  was  very  much  admired ;  "  to  which  he  adds 
that  he  was  very  fond  of  New  York,  his  marriage  there 
having  connected  him  with  a  numerous  family  besides 
an  unusual  acquaintance,  and  that  he  left  it  with  reluc- 
tance.* By  such  a  man  the  drama  might  be  looked 
upon  as  favorably  as  it  was  at  that  period  by  Addison, 
and  it  may  be  that  during  the  eight  years  of  his  ad- 
ministration dramatic  performances  were  given  in  the 
city,  which  was  the  capital  of  the  province.  Rip  Van 
Dam,  who  was  the  owner  of  the  building  in  which  the 
New  Theater  was  opened,  was  the  acting  governor 
from  the  time  of  Burnet's  departure  until  the  arrival  of 
Governor  Cosby  in  1732,  a  few  months  before  the  New 
Theater  was  opened,  and  was  obviously  the  personage 
denominated  "  his  honor,"  to  whom  "  the  ingenious 
Mr.  Thomas  Heady,"  who  acted  the  part  of  Worthy, 

*  Smith's  "  History  of  New  York  "  with  a  continuation,  pp. 
239,  240,  271  :  Albany,  1814. 


fit^t  Zfymct  in  5llmcrica.  35 

stood  in  the  important  relation,  in  his  own  eyes,  of 
barber  and  peruque  maker. 

The  New  Theater,  as  stated  in  the  advertisement, 
was  in  the  building  belonging  to  Rip  Van  Dam,  and 
as  Kean  &  Murray's  Company,  who  came  to  New 
York  eighteen  months  afterward, —  that  is,  in  February, 
1750, —  hired,  as  stated  in  my  former  paper,  "a  large 
room  in  the  building  on  Nassau  street,  belonging  to 
the  estate  of  Rip  Van  Dam,  the  two  theaters,  that 
of  1732  and  1750,  were  probably  in  the  same  building, 
now  generally  referred  to  as  the  Nassau  Street  Theater. 

The  comedy  with  which  the  New  Theater  was  opened 
in  1732,  "The  Recruiting  Officer,"  is  the  earliest  play 
known  to  have  been  acted  in  North  America,  for 
though,  as  has  been  stated,  there  was  a  play-house  in 
Williamsburg  ten  years  before,  it  is  not  known  what 
plays  were  acted  there  until  1736,  when  four  are  re- 
ferred to,  and  "  The  Recruiting  Officer  "  was  one  of 
them,  which  had  the  attraction  for  Virginia  that  the 
Colony  was  referred  to  in  it.  It  was  a  popular  play  in 
the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  and  continued  to  be 
acted  frequently  for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  Much 
of  its  wit  and  sprightliness  is  in  language  that  would 
not  be  tolerated  now  on  any  stage,  as  also  some  of  the 
minor  incidents  of  the  plotj  but  its  raciness  in  this  re- 
spect was  no  doubt,  at  that  time,  a  part  of  its  attraction, 
and  then  its  leading  parts  have  been  enacted  by  great 
players.  It  was  written  by  George  Farquhar,  one 
of  four  dramatists — Wycherley,  Congreve,  Vanbrugh, 
and  himself — who  are  generally  referred  to  as  the 
leading  comic  dramatists  of  the  Restoration ;  and  of 


36         fit^t  Zf^tatct  in  ?llmcrica» 


the  four,  this  production  of  Farquhar  was  the  one 
that  continued  the  longest  upon  the  stage.  Leigh 
Hunt,  a  very  competent  critic,  considered  "  The  Re- 
cruiting Officer"  one  of  the  very  best  of  Farquhar's 
plays.  Every  character,  he  says,  of  any  importance, 
is  a  genuine  transcript  from  nature;  that  there  is  a 
charm  of  gaiety  and  good  humor  throughout  it,  and 
the  fresh,  clear  air  of  a  ruddy-making  remote  Eng- 
lish town  neighborhooded  by  ample  elegance.  It  was 
performed  in  New  York  in  1843,  and  was  revived  Feb- 
ruary 8,  1885,  in  the  same  city,  by  Mr.  Augustin  Daly, 
who  has  done  so  much  to  enable  the  present  gen- 
eration to  see  what  these  witty  and  sprightly  old  com- 
edies are  when  represented  on  the  stage,  so  far  as  it  can 
be  done,  by  detaching  from  them  what  would  be  ob- 
jectionable in  the  present  age,  and  which,  in  the  revival 
of  "  The  Recruiting  Officer,"  he  did  by  reducing  its  five 
acts  to  three.  It  will  not,  I  think,  be  out  of  place  to 
show  what  was  the  result  by  inserting  two  clever  criti- 
cisms that  appeared  in  two  of  the  New  York  journals 
on  the  morning  after  this  revival,  by  writers  who  were 
not  only  excellent  dramatic  critics,  but  also  evidently 
thoroughly  well  acquainted  with  the  dramatic  literature 
of  the  period  when  "  The  Recruiting  Officer"  was  writ- 
ten, and  the  correctness  of  whose  account  of  the  per- 
formance on  that  evening  I  am  able  to  corroborate, 
having  been  myself  one  of  the  audience  on  that 
occasion.  There  is  a  freshness  and  vividness  more- 
over in  an  account  of  the  performance  of  a  play  writ- 
ten immediately  after  seeing  it,  which  can  rarely  be 
imparted  afterwards. 


fit^t  €gcatcr  m  ^Cnicrica,  37 

This  is  one  of  the  articles : 

"THE   RECRUITING   OFFICER. 

Captain  Plume Mr.  Drew 

Captain  Brazen Mr.  Parkes 

Justice  Balance Mr.  Fisher 

Sergeant  Kite Mr.  Lewis 

Mr.  IVorthy Mr.  Skinner 

Bullock   Mr.  Gilbert 

Appletree Mr.  Bond 

Feanuan Mr.  WiLKS 

Balance's  Stei.va7-d Mr.  Beekman 

Mistress  Melinda Miss  VIRGINIA  Dreher 

Rose Miss  May  Fielding 

Lucy Miss  MAY  Irwin 

Sylvia Miss  Ada  Rehan 

"  I  am  called  Captain,  sir,  by  all  the  drawers  and 
groom-porters  in  London,"  said  Miss  Ada  Rehan  at 
Daly's  Theater  last  night.  And  bravely  she  wore  her 
red  coat  and  sword,  the  martial  twist  in  her  cravat,  the 
fierce  knot  in  her  periwig,  the  cane  upon  her  button, 
and  the  dice  in  her  pocket.  The  audience  were  in  ec- 
stasies. 

It  was  a  revival  of  "  The  Recruiting  Officer,"  by 
George  Farquhar.  The  manners  of  Queen  Anne's  day 
were  reproduced  on  Mr.  Daly's  stage.  Captain  Flume 
and  Sergeant  Kite  were  enlisting  the  country  lads  and 
paying  court  to  the  country  lasses.  Justice  Balance 
was  keeping  watch  over  the  morals  of  his  daughter 
Sylvia.  Sprightly  Mistress  Melitida  was  intriguing  for 
the  hand  of  young  Worthy.  Brazen  was  bragging  of 
his  service  in  Flanders  against  the  French  and  in  Hun- 
gary against  the  Turks.  The  atmosphere  was  charged 
with  love,  and  the  stage  resounded  with  the  tap  of  the 
drum. 

The  audience  was  in  a  curious  and  observant  mood. 
The  doings  on  the  stage  were  of  a  wholly  unfamiliar 
kind.     The  language  sounded  strangely  fantastic   to 


38         fit^t  €()catcr  in  3limmca. 


modern  ears.  Ladies  held  their  breath  at  the  bygone 
sentiment  of  the  play.  Men  met  in  groups  between 
the  acts  and  wondered  what  was  the  secret  of  its  origi- 
nal success.  Its  secret  was  tolerably  simple.  It  was 
written  at  the  time  of  Marlborough's  earlier  victories. 
Blenheim  had  just  been  won.  A  military  fever  pos- 
sessed the  country.  Rustics  went  marching  round  the 
fields  with  ribbons  in  their  caps.  The  recruiting  offi- 
cer was  seen  in  every  town.  The  popular  song  of  the 
hour  was : 

Over  the  hills  and  over  the  main 
To  Flanders,  Portugal  and  Spain  : 
The  Queen  commands  and  we'll  obey; 
Over  the  hills  and  far  away. 

Moreover,  there  was  a  steady  flow  of  indecency  in 
the  comedy.-  The  town  had  been  growing  dull.  Con- 
greve  had  retired  into  the  intimacy  of  the  Duchess  of 
Marlborough.  VVycherley  was  writing  feeble  poems 
under  the  tutorship  of  that  rising  young  man,  Alexan- 
der Pope.  Vanbrugh  was  giving  his  attention  to  ar- 
chitecture. Jeremy  Collier  and  his  moral  tractate  had 
exorcised  the  merry  devils  off  the  stage,  and  the  pit 
mourned  their  departure.  So  "The  Recruiting  Offi- 
cer," with  its  broad  jests,  was  particularly  welcome. 
Captain  F/ume,  with  his  amorous  devices,  became  the 
ideal  of  the  army,  and  pretty  Rose,  with  her  chickens, 
furnished  laughter  for  the  mess-room  and  coffee-houses. 

Human  nature  has  not  much  changed.  Mr. 
Daly's  audience  last  night  was  as  fashionable  an  au- 
dience as  could  be  gathered  in  the  city.  Yet  the  few 
suggestive  lines  which  he  has  left  in  the  piece  excited 
the  loudest  laugh.  Americans  are  not  squeamish  with 
these  old  plays.  They  know  that  the  comedies  of  the 
Restoration  were  not  models  of  propriety.  They  know 
that  George  Farquhar,  the  rollicking  Irish  captain,  was 
not  a  preacher  of  morality.  And  if  the  piece  hung  fire 
at  times,  if  it  seemed  a  trifle  heavy  and  monotonous. 


fit^t  Z^mct  in  ^Cnictica.         39 


it  was  because  the  spectators  had  been  crechted  with  a 
prudery  which  they  did  not  seem  to  possess. 

The  company  was  a  Httle  out  of  its  element.  Mr. 
Drew,  in  particular,  should  have  been  livelier  and 
airier,  conducting  his  love  affairs  with  as  light  a  touch 
as  Charles  Mathews  might  have  conducted  them  in 
other  days,  or  Mr.  Wallack  to-day.  Mr.  Fisher,  too, 
pressed  with  too  heavy  a  hand  on  such  niceties  of 
character  as  have  been  discovered  in  Justice  Balance  ; 
and  Mr.  James  Lewis,  though  discreet  and  refined  in 
his  humor,  extracted  none  of  the  exuberant  fun  from 
Sergeant  Kite  with  which  critics  of  the  past  have  sup- 
posed that  unscrupulous  personage  to  overflow.  Mr. 
Skinner  was  a  dignified  young  lover,  and  Mr.  Parkes 
amused  as  Brazen.  But  the  honors  of  the  evening 
rested  with  Miss  Virginia  Dreher,  who  looked  radi- 
diantly  beautiful  in  a  web  of  lace  and  gold,  and  with 
Miss  Ada  Rehan,  who  had  the  bold  step,  the  rakish 
toss  and  the  impudent  air  of  your  true  military  gallant. 
She  was  not  Peg  Wofiington,  perhaps,  but  she  was  a 
charming  woman  in  disguise,  and  the  town  will  be 
curious  to  see  her. 

This  is  the  other : 

"THE   RECRUITING   OFFICER." 

Another  "  first  night "  in  Mr.  Daly's  comfortable 
theater,  and  the  same  assemblage  of  well-dressed 
people,  with  faces  one  knows  by  sight  on  every  side, 
and  pleasurable  expectancy  the  predominating  sensa- 
tion. "  Love  on  Crutches  "has  ambled  gracefully  out 
of  sight,  and  instead  of  the  fresh  daintiness  of  the 
modern  play  there  were  to  come  rollicking  humor,  the 
buoyant  spirits,  the  intrigue  and  broad  wit  of  old 
English  comedy.  No  longer  the  New  York  fine  lady, 
Miss  Rehan  was  to  depict  the  healthy  English  maiden 


40  fit^t  €j)catci:  in  3llnicrica, 


of  nearly  two  centuries  ago,  and  to  masquerade  as  well 
in  the  character  of  Ja^k  IVil/ul ;  Mr.  Drew,  who  had 
so  cleverly  portrayed  the  young  New  Yorker  of  the 
last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  was  to  assume 
the  becoming  uniform,  the  rakish  air,  and  the  frolic- 
some manners  of  a  IJritish  officer  in  the  first  c[uarter  of 
the  eighteenth ;  instead  of  a  meek  and  virtuous  family 
physician,  Mr.  Lewis  was  to  be  seen  as  a  rattling 
and  repreliensible  recruiting  sergeant.  In  other  words, 
George  Farquhar's  bright  and  witty  comedy,  "  The 
Recruiting  Officer,"  was  to  be  revealed  to  a  generation 
of  playgoers  who  scarcely  remembered  even  its  title, 
so  long  had  it  been  left  upon  the  shelf.  Pleasurable 
expectations  of  the  ])roduction  were  in  many  respects 
realized.  The  comedy  was  tastefully  mounted,  though 
without  extravagance,  the  costumes  were  handsome 
and  appropriate  to  the  time  represented,  and  conse- 
quently the  stage  pictures  revealed  were  both  hand- 
some and  quaint.  That  the  old-time  flavor  was  fully 
preserved  in  the  action  it  would  be  folly  to  say.  An 
intelligent  performance  of  Farquhar's  comedy  was 
given,  however,  with  much  of  the  original  text,  and 
everybody  present  interested  in  the  history  and  litera- 
ture of  the  EngHsh  stage  found  abundant  entertain- 
ment. Mr.  Daly  has  compressed  the  five  acts  of 
Farquhar  into  three,  slightly  altering  the  sequence  of 
some  of  the  scenes,  expunging  lines  of  dubious  mean- 
ing, and  many  not  at  all  dubious,  and  quickening  the 
denouement.  While  "  The  Recruiting  Officer,"  is  not 
so  ingeniously  constructed  as  "  The  Beaux'  Stratagem," 
its  dialogue  bristles  with  repartee,  every  character 
is  clearly  defined,  and  the  plot  is  clever  though  slight. 
The  scene  is  laid  at  Shrewsbury,  and  the  personages 
are  simple  townsfolk  and  military  men.  There  is  a 
quartet  of  lovers,  a  wise  father,  a  noisy  braggart,  the 
Sergeant,  who  fills  the  position  of  intriguing  valet  to 
the  hero,  a  designing  lady's  maid,  a  knowing  market 


f  ir^t  €()catcc  in  311nicrifa.  41 


girl,  and  a  trio  of  bumpkins.  The  heroine,  being  sent 
away  by  her  father  to  avoid  her  lover,  returns  in  male 
attire  to  test  the  hero's  affections,  and  after  some 
strange  experiences  weds  him.  'I'he  play,  of  course, 
has  famous  associations.  Peg  Woffington  jjlayed  Sylvia 
when  the  veteran  Quin  was  Justice  Balance ;  Elliston 
played  Captain  Flutne,  and  in  later  years  this  was  one 
of  Charles  Kemble's  favorite  parts ;  Munden  and 
Knight  were  the  original  representatives  of  the  two 
recruits,  Pearmain  and  Appletree*  and  Irish  Johnstone 
was  Seri:^eant  Kite.  In  that  cast  Ann  Oldfield  was 
Svlvia,  Gibber  Brazoi,  and  Wilks,  Farquhar's  nearest 
friend.  Captain  Plume.  It  was  a  fancy  of  Farquhar's 
friends  that  Plume  was  a  portrait  of  himself.  He  had 
been  a  dashing  officer  during  his  brief  and  eventful 
career,  as  well  as  actor  and  dramatist.  Farquhar's  life 
was  a  sad  one,  in  spite  of  the  legacy  of  merriment  he 
left  to  the  world  in  his  works.  He  left  college  to  go 
upon  the  stage,  which,  after  accidentally  wounding  a 
brother  actor  in  a  fencing  combat,  he  abandoned  for 
the  army.  He  died  at  the  age  of  thirty,  leaving  no 
fortune  for  his  family,  although  within  a  decade  he 
had  written  seven  successful  comedies,  "  Love  and  a 
Botde,"  "  The  Constant  Couple,"  "  The  Inconstant ;  or, 
Wine  Works  Wonders,"  "  The  Stage  Coach,"  "  The  Re- 
cruiting Officer,"  and  "  The  Beaux'  Stratagem,"  during 
the  run  of  which  he  expired,  in  the  Spring  of  1707. 
Farquhar  was  a  man  of  genius,  a  keen  observer,  and, 
like  most  of  his  kind,  a  stanch  foe  to  all  pretense.  His 
low-comedy  characters  were  true  to  nature  in  their 
conceits  and  frailties,  as  well  as  in  their  manner  of 
speech  ;  his  high-bred  dames  were  not  always  circum- 
spect in  their  behavior,  while  his  young  gentlemen 
were  devil-may-care  fellows,  glib  of  tongue,  affable, 
generous,  but  not  exacdy  proper.     He  belonged  to  his 

*  This  is  an  error  in  the  writer,  they  were  Norris  and  Fair- 
bank,  and  the  original  Sergeant  Kite  was  Estcourt. 

6 


42  fit^t  Zf^ma  in  ^Hmcrica. 


age,  and,  compared  with  the  work  of  some  of  his  con- 
temporaries and  immediate  predecessors,  his  writings 
were  purity  itself.  With  the  exception  of  "  The  In- 
constant "  we  do  not  remember  that  any  of  his  come- 
dies had  been  performed  here  in  recent  years,  until 
"  The  Recruiting  Officer  "  was  seen  last  evening.  They 
demand  of  actors  dashing  manners,  freedom  and 
breadth  of  style,  which  few  performers  of  the  present 
day  possess.  The  charm  of  last  evening's  representa- 
tion lay  in  the  portrayal  of  Sylvia  by  Miss  Rehan. 
Indeed  this  was  the  only  individual  piece  of  work  that 
could  be  said  to  have  any  charm,  and  although  Sylvia 
is  the  heroine  the  part  is  scarcely  more  important  than 
at  least  two  of  the  others.  Miss  Rehan  was  not  only 
successful  in  catching  the  spirit  of  the  piece,  and  trans- 
mitting it  to  the  audience,  so  far  as  her  own  part  was 
concerned,  but  she  invested  the  character  with  wo- 
manly tenderness  and  delicacy,  and  put  more  meaning 
into  a  few  important  lines  of  the  text  than  appears  on 
the  surface.  As  Sylvia  herself,  she  was  the  affection- 
ate and  dutiful  daughter,  who  felt  more  sorrow  for  her 
brother's  death,  doubtless,  than  the  author  intended; 
as  Master  Jack  Wilful,  and  his  alter  ego,  Captain  Finc/i, 
who  took  snuff  with  a  pinch,  and  in  short,  could  do 
anything  at  a  pinch,  her  imitation  of  the  foppish  man- 
ners and  languid  nonchalance  of  the  London  buck 
was  dehciously  droll  and  seemed  not  a  bit  incongruous, 
though  it  is  not  likely  that  it  was  so  pronounced  as 
Mistress  Ann  Oldfield's  treatment  of  the  same  passages. 
Miss  Rehan,  in  short,  was  thoroughly  at  home  in  the 
old  comedy.  If  her  work  was  not  strictly  in  keeping 
with  traditions,  it  was  still  delightful  and  artistic.  She 
interpreted  Farquhar  in  her  own  way,  but  without 
missing  his  meaning,  except  where  his  meaning  would 
not  be  tasteful  to  a  modern  audience.  Her  treatment 
of  the  scenes  with  Rose,  for  instance,  was  admirable ; 
and  the  tact  and  refinement  of  the  actress  were  needed 


fit^t  €()catcc  in  Kiiicrica*         43 


in  these  in  sj)ite  of  careful  "  editing  "  and  expunging. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  Miss  Rehan  presented  a 
handsome  picture  in  the  fine  raiment  o{  Master  Wilful, 
and  the  well-setting  uniform  of  the  gay  Captain.  Mr. 
Charles  Fisher  handled  the  character  of  old  Balance 
in  his  accustomed  manner;  the  mode  of  old  comedy  is 
familiar  to  this  veteran,  for  he  was  educated  to  it,  and 
was  a  rising  actor  wlien  Farquhar's  comedy  was  last 
given  at  the  old  "  Park,"  forty-two  years  ago.  Miss 
Dreher  spoke  the  lines  of  languid  Aliss  Melinda  in  the 
riglit  spirit,  and  was  a  fine  lady  to  the  life,  but  the 
part  is  of  little  interest.  Mr.  Drew  bore  himself  well 
in  his  uniform,  and  his  acting  was  extremely  good  at 
some  points,  notably,  in  the  combat  with  Brazen. 
But  he  lacks  the  joyous,  rattling  style  essential  to  the 
proper  rendering  of  such  a  character.  No  one,  for  in- 
stance, would  ever  take  Captain  Flume,  as  played  by 
Mr.  Drew,  for  a  portrait  of  George  Farquhar.  Mr. 
Lewis,  as  Kite,  was  Mr.  Lewis;  Mr.  Skinner,  as  Wor- 
thy, was  Guy  Roverly  dressed  for  a  masquerade ; 
Braze?i,  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Parkes,  should  be  re- 
named Wooden;  Bullock  was  made  by  Mr.  Gilbert, 
an  ill-fed  fellow,  dry  instead  of  unctuous,  and  tlie  two 
recruits  were  colorless  sketches.  Miss  Fielding  was 
pretty  and  interesting  as  the  chicken  girl,  and  Miss 
Irwin  amusing  as  Melinda' s  maid.  At  times  the  per- 
formance dragged  when  Miss  Rehan  was  off  the 
stage,  but  Mr.  Daly  is  to  be  thanked  for  the  revival 
all  the  same,  which,  as  we  have  intimated,  is  well 
worth  seeing. 

Which  ends  this  second  writer's  notice  of  the  revival. 


The  first  representation  of  the  play  was  at  Drury 
Lane  in  1706.     The  original  Sylvia  was  Mrs.  Oldfield, 


44         fit^t  €t^catct  in  ^llmcrica. 


a  tall,  beautiful,  finely  formed  woman,  with  an  ex- 
quisite, clear,  and  powerful  voice,  that  made  her  as 
impressive  in  tragedy  as  she  was  fascinating  in  comedy. 
Fielding,  the  novelist,  says  that  her  "  ravishing  per- 
fection made  her  the  admiration  of  every  eye  and  every 
ear";  and  Colley  Gibber  and  other  contemporaries 
unite  in  giving  her  the  most  unstinted  praise.  Such 
an  actress,  in  such  a  part  as  Sylvia,  the  most  interesting 
character  in  the  play,  must  have  been  very  attractive, 
especially  in  that  portion  of  it  where  Sylvia  appears  in 
male  attire,  dressed  as  a  young  officer.  It  was  to  her 
that  Pope  referred,  according  to  Warton,  in  the  well- 
known  lines,  descriptive  of  a  feminine  wish  at  the  clos- 
ing moment  of  life : 

"  Odious  !  in  woollen  !  'twould  a  saint  provoke  " 
(Were  the  last  words  that  poor  Narcissa  spoke). 
"  No,  let  a  charming  chintz  and  Brussels  lace 
Wrap  my  cold  limbs  and  shade  my  lifeless  face. 
One  would  not,  sure,  be  frightful  when  one's  dead 
And  —  Betty  —  give  this  cheek  a  little  Red." 

The  original  Captain  Plume,  the  recruiting  officer^ 
was  Wilks,  the  most  distinguished  actor  at  that  time  on 
the  English  stage,  and  this  part  continued  for  a  long 
time  thereafter  to  be  a  favorite  one  with  actors  who 
had  the  advantages  of  a  handsome  face,  a  fine  person, 
and  the  temperament  to  impart  to  it  that  vivacity  and 
airiness  that  the  character  requires.  The  original  Kite, 
the  recruiting  sergeant,  a  part  that  affords  great  scope 
for  the  powers  of  a  low  comedian,  was  Estcourt,  a 
famous  mimic,  of  whom  Colley  Cibber  says :  "  This 
man  was  so  amazing  and  extraordinary  a  mimic  that 


ipit^t  Cljcatcr  in  5Cniccica,         45 

no  man  or  woman  from  the  coquette  to  the  privy 
councillor  ever  moved  or  spoke  before  him  but  he 
could  carry  their  voice,  look,  mien,  and  motion  in- 
stantly into  another  company,"  and  he  adds,  "  even  to 
the  manner  of  thinking  of  an  eminent  pleader  of  the 
bar  with  every,  the  least  article  and  singularity  of  his 
utterance  so  perfectly  imitated  that  he  was  the  very 
alter  ipse,  scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from  his  origi- 
nal." '  Farquhar,  the  author  of  the  comedy,  schooled 
him  for  this  particular  part,  his  performance  of  which 
has  been  highly  praised.  "Witness"  says  Dowse,  "his 
Sergeant  Kite ;  he  is  not  only  excellent  in  it,  but  a 
superlative  mimic."  "  Mr.  Estcourt,"  says  Chet- 
wood,  "  the  original  Sergeant  Kite,  every  night  of 
performance  entertained  the  audience  with  a  variety 
of  little  catches  and  flights  of  humor  that  pleased  all 
but  his  critics." 

This  allusion  to  his  critics  refers  to  Gibber  and  some 
others  who,  whilst  admitting  his  great  powers  as  a 
mimic,  declared  that  he  was  but  an  indifferent  actor, 
an  opinion  in  which  others  who  were  equally  com- 
petent to  judge  did  not  concur,  and  which  on  Gibber's 
part  was  attributed  to  his  desire  to  play  leading  parts, 
to  which  he  could  not  succeed  during  Estcourt's  life. 
Estcourt  may  by  his  imitations  of  their  acting  or  pecu- 
liarities have  offended  actors  and  others,  who,  how- 
ever much  they  might  enjoy  such  a  representation  of 
others,  may  have  looked  very  differently  upon  a  like 
representation  of  themselves,  a   good    illustration  of 

1  Life  of  Gibber,  by  Bell,  Chambers  ed.,  105,  106. 


46         fir^t  €j)catct  in  ICnicrica, 


which  is  found  in  an  anecdote  of  Estcourt  and  Sir 
Godfrey  Kneller,  the  celebrated  portrait  i)ainter  of 
that   period. 

Secretary  Craggs,  when  a  young  man,  in  company 
with  some  of  his  friends,  went  with  Estcourt  to  Sir  God- 
frey Kneller's,  and  whispered  to  him  that  a  gentleman 
present  was  able  to  give  such  a  representation  of  many 
among  his  most  principal  j)atrons  as  would  occasion 
the  greatest  surprise.  Estcourt  accordingly,  at  the 
artist's  earnest  desire,  mimicked  Lords  Somers,  Hali- 
fax, Godolphin,  and  others  so  exactly  that  Kneller 
was  delighted  and  laughed  heartily  at  the  imitation. 
Craggs  gave  a  signal  as  previously  concerted,  and 
Estcourt  immediately  imitated  Kneller  himself,  who 
cried  out  in  a  transport  of  ungovernable  conviction, 

"  Nay,  there  you  are  out,  man.     By  G ,  that  's  not 

me!" 

In  the  colonial  society,  or  "  people  of  figure,"  as  they 
were  then  called  in  New  York,  where  so  much  de- 
pended upon  manners,  well-arranged  apparel  and  a 
flowing  wig,  a  peruke  maker  was,  at  least  in  his  own 
estimation,  a  person  of  consequence,  as  appears  from 
the  manner  in  which  Mr.  Heady  is  referred  to  in  the 
paragraph  that  has  been  quoted,  and  also  from  an 
announcement  that  appeared  in  the  "  New  York 
Weekly  Post  Boy"  of  March  5,  1750,  about  three 
weeks  after  the  opening  of  the  Nassau  Street  Theater 
by  Kean  &  Murray's  company,  as  mentioned  in  my 
former  paper,  which  announcement  is  as  follows : 

"  This  is  to  acquaint  the  public  that  there  is 
lately  arrived  from  London  the  Wotider  of  the  World, 


fk^t  CJjcatcr  in  3Cmccica»  47 

(7//  honest  Barber  and  Peruke  Maker,  who  might  have 
worked  for  the  King  if  his  Majesty  would  have  em- 
ployed him ;  it  was  not  for  the  want  of  money  that 
he  came  here,  for  he  had  enough  of  that  at  Home; 
nor  for  the  want  of  Business  that  he  advertises  himself; 
but  to  acquaint  the  gentlemen  and  ladies  that  such  a 
Person  is  now  in  Town  living  near  Rosemary  Lane, 
where  Gentlemen  and  Ladies  may  be  supplied  with 
Goods  as  follows,  viz. :  Tyes,  Full  Bottoms,  Myers, 
Spencers,  Fox-Tails,  RamiUes,  Tucks,  Cut  kinds  of 
head  coverings  and  adornments,  and  bob  Perukes ;  also 
Ladies'  Talemalongues  and  Towers,  after  the  Manner 
that  is  now  wore  at  Court.  By  their  humble  and 
obedient  Servant, 

"John  Still." 

The  hibernicism  that  he  did  not  put  in  the  advertise- 
ment for  the  want  of  business,  nor  to  make  money,  of 
which  he  had  plenty,  but  merely  to  apprise  the  ladies 
and  gentlemen  that  such  a  person  was  then  in  town, 
was,  if  genuine,  an  exhibition  of  enormous  self-import- 
ance, or  it  was  what  is  more  probable,  a  comic  effort 
to  attract  attention  to  his  calling  by  one  who  was 
something  of  an  adept  in  that  way,  who  may  have  been 
a  member  of  the  theatrical  company  that  were  then 
performing,  and  who  followed  the  three  pursuits  of  a 
barber,  a  peruke  maker,  and  an  actor. 

It  would  appear  that  there  was  a  second  opening  of 
a  theater  in  New  York  seven  years  afterwards.  All 
that  I  know  respecting  it  is  that  there  is  a  manuscript 
volume  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  William  Nelson,  of 


48  fix^t  Cljcntcr  in  America. 


Paterson,    New    Jersey,   liandsomely    engrossed    with 
ornamental  lettering,  entitled : 

POEMS 

ON 

SEVERAL    OCCASIONS 

liY 

Archibald  Home,  Esq., 

Late  Secretary  and  One  of  His  Majesties  Council 
for  the  province  of  New  Jersey  North  America, 

which  was  purchased  by  Mr.  Nelson  from  a  London 
dealer  in  1890,  and  that  one  of  these  poems  is  entitled 

PROLOGUE, 

INTENDED    FOR    THE    SECOND    OPENING     OF    THE 
THEATRE    AT    NEW    YORK,  ANNO    1 739, 

which  is  as  follows : 

Encourag'd  by  th'  Indulgence  you  have  shown, 
Again  we  strive  to  entertain  the  Town, 

This  gen'rous  Town  which  nurs'd  our  infant  Stage 

And  cast  a  Shelter  o'er  its  tender  Age, 
It's  young  Attempts  beyond  their  Merits  prais'd 
Fond  of  the  little  Bantling  she  had  rais'd 

Go  on  to  cherish  to  a  Stronger  Size 

This  Spur  to  Virtue,  this  keen  Scourge  to  Vice  ! 
Ye  Faultless  Fair,  lend  all  your  influence  here! 
O  Patronize  the  Child,  you  cannot  Fear. 

Oft  when  the  Serious  Admonition  Fails 
O'er  the  lov'd  Fault  the  Comick  Mask  prevails ; 
Safe  From  the  Bar,  the  Pulpit,  and  the  Throne, 
Vice  blushing  yields  to  ridicule  alone. 


fiv^t  Cljcatcr  m  3tnicnca.  49 


This  ancient  Greece  this  the  Great  Romans  knew, 
They  held  th'  instructive  Mirrour  Fair  to  view; 
That  each  his  own  Deformities  might  trace 
And  smooth  his  features  by  the  Faithful  Glass. 

When  Arts  and  Sciences  began  to  Smile, 
And  shed  their  Lustre  on  our  Parent  Isle, 
Attendant  on  their  Steps  the  Drama  came, 
Like  theirs  th'  Imjirovement  of  Mankind  her  Aim; 
Intent  on  this  with  them  she  journeys  West, 
To  our  New  World,  a  wisli'd,  a  welcome  Guest; 
Here  pleas'd  she  sees  her  Stage  erect  its  head, 
Her  Children  honour'd,  &  her  Servants  Fed  ; 
Prophetick  views  in  you  her  second  Rome 
And  swells  her  Breast  with  Empire  yet  to  come.* 

The  researches  of  the  writer  of  an  article  in  "  The 
New-York  Times"  of  December  the  15th,  1895,  has 
brought  to  hght  some  information  hitherto  unknown 
of  these  early  American  theaters.  He  has  examined 
the  newspaper  files  of  the  Library  Society  in  Charles- 

*A  MS.  volume,  small  4°,  Pp.  (xvii),  I-CXXX;  Appendix, 
pp.  XVI.  Handsomely  engrossed,  with  ornamental  or  fancy 
lettering  for  the  title,  the  whole  apparently  the  work  of  a  pro- 
fessional clerk.  Bound  in  old  mottled  calf,  with  gilt  border, 
stamped  back  once  gilt  and  lettered. 

POEMS 

By 

A.  H. 

ESQR 

MS. 

Bought  from  a  London  dealer  in  1890,  by  William  Nelson,  of 
Paterson,  New  Jersey. 
7 


50         fit^t  *Cl)catcr  in  5tnicrica» 


ton,  South  Carolina,  from  1732,  and  finds,  on  the  24th 
of  January,  1735,  that  a  play  was  acted  in  Charles 
Town,  as  the  name  was  then  written,  and  he  gives  this 
advertisement  of  it  in  the  "  South  Carolina  Gazette," 
dated,  as  was  then  customary,  from  Jan.  18,  1734-35  : 

On  Friday,  the  24th  inst.,  in  the  Court  Room,  will  be  at- 
tempted a  tradgedy  called  "  The  Orphan,  or  The  Unhappy 
Marriage." 

Tickets  will  be  delivered  out  on  Tuesday  next,  at  Mr.  Shep- 
heard's,  at  40s.  each. 

Forty  shillings  would  seem  to  be  a  high  price  at  that 
time  to  pay  for  a  ticket  to  a  dramatic  entertainment. 
But  what  the  value  of  a  shilling  was  then  in  South 
Carolina  compared  to  the  value  of  a  pound  sterling,  I 
do  not  know.  The  price  of  a  box  ticket  at  Kean  & 
Murray's  theater  in  Nassau  street  fifteen  years  after- 
wards was  five  shillings  New  York  currency,  which 
was  about  the  value  of  two  dollars  at  the  present  day, 
and  if  the  value  of  the  South  Carolina  currency  at 
that  day  was  anything  near  that  of  New  York,  this 
high  price  for  admission  would  imply  either  that  the 
Court  House  where  the  performance  of  Otway's  Orphan 
took  place  did  not  afford  room  for  many  spectators  or 
that  the  number  of  persons  who  were  expected  to  pa- 
tronize the  entertainment  was  small,  so  that  a  high  price 
of  admission  was  necessary  to  meet  the  expenses  and 
afford  some  remuneration  to  the  players,  who,  I  infer, 
were  a  regular  theatrical  company,  as  a  charge  was 
made  for  admission,  and  the  performances  were  con- 
tinued once  a  week,  from  the  24th  of  January  to  March 


fit^t  Cgcatcc  in  3lmcrica.  s^ 

23,  1735-36,  during  which  tragedies,  comedies,  farces, 
and  other  entertainments  were  given. 

The  writer  in  the  "  Times  "  says  that  the  play  an- 
nounced in  the  advertisement,  Otway's  "  Orphan,"  was 
])erformed,  though  the  next  "  Gazette  "  took  no  no- 
tice of  it,  the  "local"  being  of  the  briefest  character; 
but  the  numl)er  of  the  "  Gazette"  of  February,  1736, 
])ublished  the  Prologue  spoken  on  the  opening  night, 
which  has  at  least  the  merit  of  easy  versification  and 
of  being  appropriate  to  such  an  occasion  :  He  gives 
it  as  follows : 

PROLOGUE. 

When  first  Columbus  touch'd  this  distant  shore, 
And  vainly  hoped  his  Fears  and  Dangers  o'er. 
One  boundless  Wilderness  in  view  appear'd 
No  Champain  Plains  or  rising  Cities  cheer'd 
His  wearied  Eye. 

Monsters  unknown  travers'd  the  hideous  Waste, 
And  men  more  savage  than  the  Beasts  they  chased. 
But  mark !     How  soon  these  gloomy  Prospects  clear, 
And  the  new  World's  late  Horrors  disappear. 
The  Soil  obedient  to  the  industrious  swains. 
What  happy  Harvests  crown  their  honest  Pains, 
And  Peace  and  Plenty  triumph  o'er  the  Plains. 
What  various  products  float  on  every  Tide  ? 
What  numerous  Navies  in  our  Harbors  ride  ? 
Tillage  and  Trade  conjoin  their  friendly  Aid, 
T'  enrich,  the  thriving  Boy  and  lovely  Maid, 
Hispania,  'tis  true,  her  precious  mines  engross'd, 
And  bore  her  shining  Entrails  to  its  Coast. 
Britannia  more  humane  supplies  her  wants. 
The  British  sense  and  British  beauty  plants. 


52         fit^t  €|)catcr  in  3iimcrica. 


The  aged  Sire  beholds  with  sweet  surprise 

In  foreign  climes  a  numerous  offspring  rise, 

Sense,  Virtue,  Worth,  and  Honour  stand  confest 

In  each  brave  male,  his  prosperous  hands  have  blessed. 

While  the  admiring  Eye  improved  may  trace. 

The  Mother's  Charms  in  each  chaste  Virgin's  Face. 

Hence  we  presume  to  usher  in  those  Arts 

Which  oft  have  warm'd  the  best  and  bravest  Hearts. 

Faint  our  Endeavours,  wide  are  our  Essays, 

We  strive  to  please,  but  can't  pretend  to  Praise; 

Forgiving  Smiles  o'er  pay  the  grateful  task, 

Those  all  we  hope  and  all  we  humbly  ask. 

The  further  information  that  this  interesting  article 
contains  it  will  be  more  satisfactory  to  give  in  the  au- 
thor's own  words : 

"  The  Orphan  "  was  repeated  January  28,  and  again 
February  4,  with  the  addition  of  "  a  new  Pantomime 
Entertainment  in  Grotesque  Characters,  called,  '  The 
Adventures  of  Harlequin  and  Scaramouch,  with  the 
Burgo-Master  Trick'd.' " 

After  this  run  of  three  nights  it  was  necessary  to 
change  the  programme,  and  so  the  "  Gazette  "  for  Feb- 
ruary 18,  1734-35,  announces  '"The  Opera  of  Flora; 
or,  Hob  in  the  Well,'  with  the  Dance  of  the  two  Pier- 
rots and  a  new  Pantomime  Entertainment,  etc.,  to  be- 
gin at  6  o'clock  precisely." 

On  Tuesday,  March  25,  they  played  the  comedy 
called  "The  Spanish  Fryar;  or.  The  Double  Discov- 
ery," and  on  Thursday  of  the  same  week  the  play  was 
repeated  "  for  the  benefit  of  Monimia."  Who  was 
Monimia  ? 


fic^t  CJjcater  in  511mcrica,  53 

This  benefit  seems  to  have  closed  the  season,  but 
the  people  must  have  been  pleased,  for  on  May  3  the 
following  advertisement  appears  : 

Any  gentlemen  that  are  disposed  to  encourage  the  exhibition 
of  plays  next  Winter,  may  have  the  sight  of  the  proposals  for  a 
subscription  at  Mr.  Shepheard's  in  Broad  Street.  And  any  per- 
sons that  are  desirous  of  having  a  share  in  the  performance 
thereof,  upon  application  to  Mr.  Shepheard  shall  receive  a  satis- 
factory answer.  N.  B. — The  subscription  will  be  closed  the  last 
day  of  this  month. 

There  is  not  another  word  in  "  The  Gazette  "  con- 
cerning theatrical  affairs  until  January  24,  1735-36, 
when  the  proposals  appear  to  have  borne  fruit,  for  it  is 
announced  that  — 

On  Thursday,  the  12th  of  February,  will  be  opened  the  new 
theatre  in  Dock  Street,  in  which  will  be  performed  the  comedy 
called  "The  Recruiting  Officer." 

Tickets  for  the  pitt  and  boxes  will  be  delivered  at  Mr.  Charles 
Shepheard's,  on  Thursday,  the  5th  of  February.  Boxes,  30s  ;  pitt, 
20s ;  and  tickets  for  the  gallery,  15s,  which  will  be  delivered  at  the 
theatre  the  day  of  playing. 

N.  B. —  The  doors  will  be  opened  all  the  afternoon.  The  sub- 
scribers are  desired  to  send  to  the  stage  door  in  the  forenoon  to 
bespeak  places,  otherwise  it  will  be  too  late. 

Dunlap  evidently  had  never  heard  of  the  "new 
theatre  in  Dock  Street,"  for  he  says  that  "  in  1773  the 
first  theater  was  built  in  Charleston,  S.  C,  David 
Douglass  having  gained  permission  from  the  magis- 
trates, and  being  invited  by  the  inhabitants.  In  Sep- 
tember he  went  thither  and  the  company  followed  him. 
They  played  fifty-one  nights  in  that  city,  closing  the 


54         fit^t  Zf^catct  in  5limctica, 

campaign  in  June,  1774.  On  October  24,  1774,  the 
first  Congress  agreed  to  discountenance  gaming,  cock 
fighting,  exhibition  of  shows,  plays,  and  other  expen- 
sive diversions  and  entertainments," 

The  Charles  Town  "  Gazette  "  does  not  notice  so  im- 
portant an  event  as  the  opening  of  the  first  theater  in  the 
South,  and  probably  on  this  continent,  in  its  news 
columns,  but  the  advertisements  announce  that  on 
February  23  Otway's  "  Orphan  "  was  played,  and  the 
next  "  Gazette"  announces: 

By  desire  of  the  officers  of  the  Troop  and  Foot  Companies,  at 
the  new  theatre,  Queen  street,  will  be  acted  on  Tuesday  next,  a 
comedy  called  the  "  Recruiting  Officer,"  with  several  entertain- 
ments as  will  be  expressed  in  the  great  bills. 

Tickets  to  be  had  at  Mr.  Charles  Shepheard's  and  at  the 
theatre. 

Charles  Town  was  at  that  time  a  rapidly  growing 
town,  and  plebeian  "  Dock  "  street,  as  shown  by  the 
advertisements,  had  been  changed  to  "  Queen  "  street, 
as  it  is  still  known. 

Once  a  week  seems  to  have  been  the  rule  for  the 
plays,  but  the  next  piece,  George  Lillo's  famous  "  The 
London  Merchant,  or  the  History  of  George  Barnwell," 
was  not  put  upon  the  boards  until  March  9.  Seven 
days  later  it  was  repeated  "  for  the  last  time,"  with  the 
addition  of  a  farce,  "  The  Devil  to  Pay,  or  the  Wives 
Metamorphosed."  This  was  Coffey's  celebrated  work, 
whose  "  female  character  Nell  *  *  *  made  the  for- 
tunes of  several  actresses." 

The  season  seems  to  have  closed  with  the  perennial 


fit^t  €()catcr  in  ^tincrica.  55 

"  Orphan  "  and  the  above-named  farce,  which  were 
phiyed  March  23,  1735-36.  This  is  all  that  can  be 
gleaned  from  the  "  Gazette "  as  to  the  plays  and 
theater,  but  the  new  venture  seems  to  have  very  soon 
come  to  grief.  The  "Gazette"  for  May  22-29  con- 
tains this  epigram  : 

ON    THE    SALE    OF    THE    THEATRE. 

How  cruel  Fortune,  and  how  fickle,  too, 
To  crop  the  Method  made  for  making  you ! 
Changes  tho'  common,  yet  when  great  they  prove, 
Make  men  distrust  the  care  of  Mighty  Jove; 
Half  made  in  thought  (though  not  in  fact)  we  find 
You  bought  and  sold,  but  left  poor  H.  behind. 
P.  S. — Since  so  it  is  ne'er  mind  the  silly  trick, 
The  pair  will  please,  when  Pierrot  makes  you  sick. 

Who  sold  and  who  bought  is  a  mystery,  but  the 
transaction  did  not  change  the  theater  to  other  uses, 
for  the  "  Gazette  "  announces :  *'  A  ball  at  the  play- 
house in  Queen  street  on  February  3  next.  To  begin 
at  6  o'clock."  In  the  paper  for  January  8-15,  1737, 
and  in  May  of  the  same  year :  "  At  the  request  of  the 
Ancient  and  Honorable  Society  of  Free  and  Accepted 
Masons,  at  the  theatre  in  Queen  Street,  on  Thursday 
next,  the  26th  instant,  will  be  performed  a  comedy, 
called  '  The  Recruiting  Officer,'  with  a  prologue,  epi- 
logue and  song  suitable  to  the  occasion,  to  which  will 
be  added  a  new  dance  called  '  Harlequin,'  and  the 
clown  and  the  song,  '  Mad  Tom '  in  proper  habili- 
ments, by  a  person  that  has  never  yet  appeared  upon 
the  stage." 


56  jfic^t  CJcatcc  in  3tmcrica» 


This  performance  seems  to  have  been  a  great  suc- 
cess, for  the  next  "  Gazette  "  accords  it  this  most  ex- 
tended notice : 

Charlestown,  May  28. 

On  Thursday  night  last  "  Tlie  Recruiting  Officer  "  was  acted 
for  the  entertainment  of  the  ancient  and  honorable  society  of 
Free  and  Accepted  Masons,  who  came  to  the  Play  House  about 
7  o'clock,  in  the  usual  manner,  and  made  a  very  decent  and 
solemn  appearance;  there  was  a  fuller  house  on  this  occasion 
than  ever  had  been  known  in  this  place,  and  the  entered  appren- 
tice and  masters  songs,  sung  upon  the  stage,  which  were  joined 
in  chorus  by  the  Masons  in  the  pitt  to  the  satisfaction  and  enter- 
tainment of  the  whole  audience. 

After  the  play  the  Masons  returned  to  the  lodge  at  Mr.  Shep- 
heard's,  in  the  same  order  observed  in  coming  to  the  Play  House. 

Mad  Tom's  song  must  have  been  taken  from  "  King 
Lear,"  and,  if  so,  is  the  first  recorded  instance  of  the 
production  of  any  of  Shakespeare's  works  on  this  con- 
tinent. 

The  most  careful  search  has  failed  to  find  any  men- 
tion of  plays  for  some  years,  but  a  map  of  Charlestown 
dated  1738  marks  the  site  of  the  theater  on  the  south 
side  of  Queen,  a  little  west  of  Church  street,  on  the  lot 
of  land  now  occupied  by  the  rear  portion  of  the  old 
Planters'  Hotel,  within  less  than  a  hundred  yards  of 
the  Huguenot  and  St.  Philip's  Churches,  and  in  Octo- 
ber, 1743,  a  ball  is  advertised  to  take  place  at  the 
theater  in  Queen  street. 

A  similar  notice  appears  in  the  paper  for  November 
19,  1774,  and  the  next  link  is  an  advertisement  in 
the  "  Gazette,"  October  3,  1748,  of  a  school  ''over 
against  the  Play  House,"  and  the  following  extract  from 


first  €t)cntcr  in  America.  57 

"  an  exhortation  to  the  hihabitants  of  South  Carolina," 
written  by  a  Quakeress,  Sophia  Hume,  in  1748,  and 
published  in  London  in  1752. 

The  good  lady,  after  setting  forth  the  sins  of  the 
people  of  the  province,  says  :  "  You  have  no  masquer- 
ades nor  music  gardens  to  entertain  you,  neither  are 
theatrical  entertainments  frequent  among  you,"  which 
implies  that  they  took  place  sometimes. 

May  her  shade  grant  pardon  for  the  use  of  her  book 
in  an  article  on  the  play-house. 

But  Sophia  Hume  exhorted  in  vain,  for  the  "  Ga- 
zette," in  its  issue  for  October  3,  1754,  contains  this 
rather  contradictory  advertisement : 

"  At  the  New  Theatre  on  Monday  next,  (by  a  com- 
pany of  comedians  from  London,)  a  tragedy  called  the 
'  Fair  Penitent.'  Tickets  to  be  had  of  Mr.  John 
Remington  and  at  the  printer's.  Price,  stage  box  50s.; 
front  and  side  boxes,  40s. ;  pitt,  30s.,  and  gallery,  20s." 

The  "  Gazette  "  dramatic  reporter  says  of  the  play: 
"  Last  Monday  evening  the  New  Theatre  in  this  town 
was  opened,  when  a  company  of  comedians  performed 
the  tragedy  called  the  '  Fair  Penitent,'  much  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  audience." 

The  theatrical  history  of  Charleston  from  this  time 
on,  however,  is  familiar.* 

In  the  paucity  of  information  about  the  drama  in 
America  at  this  early  period,  it  may  be  admissible  to 
refer  to  what  fiction  has  attempted  respecting  it  in  a 
novel  by  John  Esten  Cooke,  entitled  "  The  Virginia 

*"  New- York  Times,"  Sunday,  December  15,  1895. 


58  fit^t  €l)catcc  in  ^Lnicrica* 

Comedians,"  in  which  he  describes  the  WilHamsburg 
theater,  and  the  representation  in  it  of  a  play  of  Shake- 
speare's. As  Shakespeare  expressed  it,  "  imagination 
bodies  forth  the  form  of  things  unknown,"  and  men  of 
genius,  hke  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  the  elder  Dumas,  could, 
in  the  exercise  of  this  faculty,  represent  scenes  and  in- 
cidents of  the  past  more  vividly  and  apparently  as  truth- 
fully as  can  be  derived  from  the  scant  material  usually 
left  for  the  historian  —  an  illustration  of  which  will  be 
found  in  Dumas's  account  of  the  trial  and  execution 
of  Charles  I.,  in  his  sequel  to  "The  Three  Musketeers," 
"  Twenty  Years  After  " ;  and  in  Scott's  novels  there 
are  many  like  illustrations.  "  This  history,"  says  Field- 
ing, in  the  preface  to  his  celebrated  novel  which  he  calls 
"  The  History  of  Tom  Jones,"  "  differs  firom  other  his- 
tories in  this,  that  in  other  histories  nothing  is  true  but 
the  names,  whilst  in  this  everything  is  true  but  the 
names";  and  the  author  of"  The  Virginia  Comedians," 
though  not  ranking  with  the  great  masters  of  fiction 
that  have  been  referred  to,  appears  to  have  been  well 
informed  respecting  Colonial  Virginia,  and  may  be  ac- 
cepted as  having  given  what  is  probably  a  fair  picture 
of  a  night  in  the  Williamsburg  theater  during  the  Colo- 
nial period.* 

One  of  the  principal  characters  in  the  novel  is  a 
young  Virginian,  Mr.  Effingham,  who,  after  a  visit  and 
some  stay  at  Oxford  and  in  London,  has  returned  to 
the  paternal  home,  Effingham  Hall,  in  Virginia,  and 
whilst  riding  on  horseback  to  visit  a  manorial  estate  on 

*  Dunlap,  p.  l6. 


fk^t  Cfjcatcr  in  311mcrica,  59 

a  plantation  known  as  Riverhead,  of  a  gentleman  called 
Lee,  the  father  of  two  very  attractive  daughters,  draws 
up  suddenly  in  the  road,  seeing  a  young  lady  on  horse- 
back in  the  center  of  it  apparently  awaiting  his  ap- 
proach, w'ho  is  thus  described : 

The  lady  was  mounted  on  a  tall  white  horse,  which 
stood  perfectly  quiet  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  and 
seemed  to  be  docility  itself,  though  the  fiery  eyes  con- 
tradicted the  first  impression.  Rather  would  one  ac- 
quainted with  the  singular  character  of  horses  have  said 
that  this  animal  was  subdued  by  the  gentle  hand  of  the 
rider,  and  so  laid  aside,  from  pure  affection,  all  his 
waywardness. 

The  rider  was  a  young  girl  about  eighteen,  and  of 
rare  and  extraordinary  beauty.  Her  hair  —  so  much 
of  it  as  was  visible  beneath  her  hood  —  seemed  to  be 
dark  chestnut,  and  her  complexion  was  dazzling.  The 
eyes  were  large,  full,  and  dark  —  instinct  with  fire  and 
softness,  feminine  modesty  and  collected  firmness,  the 
firmness,  however,  predominating.  But  the  lips  were 
different.  They  were  the  lips  of  a  child  —  soft,  guile- 
less, tender,  and  confiding;  they  were  purity  and  inno- 
cence itself,  and  seemed  to  say  that  however  much  the 
brain  might  become  hard  and  worldly,  the  heart  of  this 
young  woman  never  could  be  other  than  the  tender 
and  delicately  sensitive  heart  of  a  child. 

She  was  clad  in  a  riding-dress  of  pearl  color,  and 
from  the  uniformity  of  this  tint,  it  seemed  to  be  a  fa- 
vorite with  her.  The  hood  was  of  silk,  and  the  deli- 
cately gloved  hand  held  a  little  ivory-handled  riding- 


6o         fit^t  Cfjcatcc  in  3tnictica» 

whip,  which  now  dangled  at  her  side.  The  other 
gloved  hand  supported  her  cheek ;  and  in  this  position 
the  unknown  lady  calmly  awaited  Mr.  Effingham's  ap- 
proach still  nearer,  though  he  was  already  near  touch- 
ing her. 

Mr.  Effingham  took  off  his  hat  and  bowed  with  ele- 
gant courtesy.  The  lady  returned  the  inclination  by 
a  graceful  movement  of  the  head. 

"  Would  you  be  kind  enough  to  point  out  the  road 
to  the  town  of  Williamsburg,  sir  ?  "  she  said,  in  a  calm 
and  clear  voice. 

"  With  great  pleasure,  madam,"  replied  Mr.  Effing- 
ham.    "  You  have  lost  your  way  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,  and  very  strangely ;  and  as  evening  drew 
on  I  was  afraid  of  being  benighted," 

"  You  have  but  to  follow  the  road  until  you  reach 
Effingham  Hall,  madam,"  he  said, —  "  the  house  in  the 
distance  yonder;  then  turn  to  the  left,  and  you  are  in 
the  highway  to  town." 

"  Thanks,  sir,"  tlie  young  girl  said,  with  another  calm 
inclination  of  her  head,  and  she  touched  her  horse 
with  the  whip. 

"  But  cannot  I  accompany  you?"  asked  Mr.  Effing- 
ham, whose  curiosity  was  greatly  aroused,  and  found 
his  eyes,  he  knew  not  why,  riveted  to  the  rare  beauty 
of  his  companion's  face;  "do  you  not  need  me  as  a 
guide  ?  " 

"  Indeed,  I  think  not,  sir,"  she  said,  with  the  same 
calmness.  "  Your  direction  is  very  plain,  and  I  am 
accustomed  to  ride  by  myself." 

"  But,   really,"    began    Mr.    Effingham,   somewhat 


fit^t  CJcatfi:  in  3l!mcrica.  ^i 

piqued,  "  I  know  it  is  intrusive  —  I  know  I  have  not 
the  honor —  " 

She  interrupted  him  with  her  immovable  cahnness. 

"  You  would  say  you  do  not  know  me,  and  that  your 
offer  is  intrusive.  I  believe,  sir,  I  do  not  consider  it 
so  —  it  is  very  kind;  but  I  am  not  a  fearful  girl,  and 
need  not  trouble  you  at  all." 

And  so  bowed. 

"One  moment,  madam,"  said  Mr.  Effingham;  "I 
am  really  dying  with  curiosity  to  know  you.  'T  is  very 
rude  to  say  so,  of  course  —  but  I  am  acquainted  with 
every  lady  in  the  neighborhood,  and  I  do  not  recall 
any  former  occasion  upon  which  I  had  the  pleasure  —  " 

"  It  is  very  easily  explained,  sir,"  the  young  girl  said. 

"  Madam ! " 

"  I  do  not  live  in  the  neighborhood." 

"  Ah ! no  ?  " 

"  And  I  am  not  a  lady,  sir.  Does  not  that  explain 
it?" 

Mr.  Effingham  scarcely  believed  his  ears.  These 
astounding  words  were  uttered  with  such  perfect  calm- 
ness that  there  was  no  possible  room  to  suppose  that 
they  were  meant  for  a  jest. 

"  You  are  surprised,  sir,"  the  young  girl  said  quite 
simply  and  gravely. 

"Upon  my  word,  madam, —  never  have  I, — 
really  —  " 

"  Your  surj)rise  will  not  last  long,  sir." 

"  How,  madam  ?  " 

"  Do  you  ever  visit  the  town  of  Williamsburg  ?  " 

"  Frequently." 


62  fit^t  Ctjcatcr  in  3tmcrica» 

"Well,  sir,  I  think  you  will  see  me  again.  Now  I 
must  continue  my  way,  having  returned  my  sincere 
thanks  for  your  kindness." 

With  which  words,  uttered  in  that  wondrous  voice  of 
immovable  calmness,  the  young  girl  again  inclined  her 
head,  touched  her  white  horse  with  the  whip,  and 
slowly  rode  out  of  sight. 

The  young  man  continued  his  journey  to  Riverhead; 
arrived  there,  and  after  an  animated  conversation  with 
the  two  attractive  young  ladies,  he  encountered  the 
father,  a  fine,  portly  old  gentleman,  who  met  him. 

"  Good  morning,  glad  to  see  you." 

Effingham  bowed  and  said  : 

"  The  morning  was  so  fine  that  I  thought  I  could 
not  spend  it  more  agreeably  than  in  a  ride  to  River- 
head,  sir." 

"  DeHghtful !  These  August  days  are  excellent  for 
the  com  ;  what  news  ?  " 

"  Nothing,  sir.     I  have  not  seen  the  '  Gazette.' " 

"  Oh,  the  '  Gazette '  never  contains  any  inteUigence; 
sometimes,  it  is  true,  we  hear  what  is  going  on  in  Parlia- 
ment, but  it  never  condescends  to  afford  us  any  news 
from  Virginia.  The  tobacco  on  the  south  side  may  be 
all  gone  to  the  devil  for  anything  you  read  in  the 
'Gazette.'  Here  it  is  —  an  abominable  sheet!  Ah, 
I  see  we  are  to  have  a  theatrical  performance  in  Wil- 
liamsburg next  week,"  added  the  old  gentleman,  on 
glancing  over  the  paper.  "  Mr.  Hallam  and  his  Vir- 
ginia company  of  comedians  —  very  politic  that  addi- 
tion of  Virginia  —  are  to  perform  'The  Merchant  of 
Venice,'  by  permission  of  his  worship,  the  Mayor,  at 


fit^t  Cljcatcr  in  5tnicrica«  63 

tlic  i)/i/  theater  near  the  capital,  he  announces.  Truly 
we  are  improving,  really  becoming  civilized,  in  this 
barbarous  /erra  incognita." 

Mr.  Effingham  winced;  he  had  more  than  once  ex- 
pressed a  similar  opinion  of  Virginia  in  good  faith, 
not  ironically,  and  the  good  old  gentleman's  words 
seemed  directed  to  himself.  A  moment's  reflection, 
however,  persuaded  him  that  this  could  not  be  the  case; 
He  had  not  visited  Riverhead  a  dozen  times  since  his 
arrival  from  Oxford  and  London,  and  on  these  occa- 
sions he  never  touched  upon  the  subject  of  Virginia 
and  its  dreadful  deficiencies. 

"A  play,"  he  said;  "  that  is  really  good  news;  but  the 
'  Merchant  of  Venice,'  that  is  not  one  of  my  acquain- 
tances." 

"  Ah  !  you  young  men  are  wrong  in  giving  up  Will. 
Shakespeare  for  the  Steeles,  Addisons,  and  Vanbrughs. 
Mr.  Addison's  essays  are  very  pleasant  and  entertain- 
ing reading,  and  surely  there  never  was  a  finer  gentle- 
man than  Sir  Roger;  but  in  the  drama  Will.  Shakespeare 
distances  him  all  to  nothing." 

"  Let  us  go  to  the  play,"  said  Henrietta. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Clara. 

The  old  gentleman  tenderly  smoothed  the  bright 
golden  hair. 

"  Certainly,  if  you  wish  it,"  he  said. 

"  And  may  I  request  permission  to  accompany  the 
party,  ladies,"  said  Mr.  Effingham,  languidly. 

"How  modest,"  said  Henrietta,  laughing;  "cer- 
tainly you  may  go,  sir.  You  will  tell  us  when  to  hiss 
or  applaud,  you  know,  as  you  are  just  from  London." 


64         fit^t  Cljcatcc  in  3Lmcnca« 


"  What  a  quick  tongue  she  has,"  said  Mr.  Lte, 
fondly;  well,  we  will  all  go,  and  see  what  the  Virginia 
company  of  comedians  is  like;  not  much  I  fear." 

At  the  appointed  day  the  young  man  appears  at 
Mr.  Lee's  mansion  and  the  young  ladies  come  down  to 
meet  him,  the  elder,  Henrietta,  being  described  as  "  radi- 
ant in  a  dress  of  surpassing  elegance  —  flowered  satin, 
yellow  lace,  jewels,  powdered  hair,  with  pendants  and 
rich  furbelows, —  the  bright  beauty  of  her  laughing  face 
assorting  well  with  her  flashing  and  glittering  cos- 
tume," while  the  costume  of  the  younger  sister  was 
more  subdued,  as  her  manner  was  more  quiet. 

A  lively  conversation  follows,  the  subject  of  which 
ends  with  an  inquiry  on  the  part  of  the  young  man  to 
the  elder  sister. 

"  Do  you  anticipate  much  pleasure  ?  "  referring  to 
the  play,  to  which  the  other  replies : 

"Oh,  it  will  be  delightful."  Then  to  the  younger, 
"  And  you.  Cousin  Clara,  do  you  think  that  these  Vir- 
ginia Comedians,  as  they  call  themselves,  will  afford 
you  a  very  pleasant  entertainment  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes  —  I  am  sure  I  shall  be  pleased  —  you  know 
I  have  never  seen  a  play." 

"  But  read  a  plenty  ?  " 

"Oh,  yes;  and  I  like  the  'Merchant  of  Venice.' 
The  character  of  Portia  is  so  delicate  and  noble." 

"  Quite  true ;  an  excellent  criticism ;  better  than  any- 
thing in  Congreve  I  think,  though  I  should  hesitate  to 
advance  such  an  opinion  in  London." 

"Who  will  act  Portia?" 


fit^t  €j)catcr  m  5llnicrica»  65 

"  I  don't  know,  but  can  tell  you  without  much  dif- 
ficulty. Here  is  a  play-bill  that  I  sent  to  town  for 
yesterday." 

And  Mr.  Effingham  drew  daintily  from  his  coat  pocket 
a  small,  roughly  printed  hand-bill,  which  he  spread  out 
before  the  eyes  of  Clara. 

" '  Virginia  Company  of  Comedians,' "  he  read, 
"'by  permission  of  his  worship  the  Mayor — in  the 
old  theatre  near  the  capitol,  on  Thursday  evening  —  a 
tragedy  called  '  The  Merchant  of  Venice,'  by  Mr. 
William  Shakespeare,  boxes  seven  shillings  sixpence' — 
'  Vivat  Rex  et  Regina  '  —  here  it  is,  '  Shylock,  Mr. 
Rigby;  Portia,  Miss  Beatrice  Hallam.'  The  part  of 
Portia  is  to  be  performed  by  Miss  Beatrice  Hallam  — 
I  have  never  seen  or  heard  of  her." 

"Which  means," said  Henrietta, laughing," that  Miss 
Beatrice  cannot  be  very  well  worth  seeing,  as  Mr.  Champ 
Effingham,  just  from  London,  and  conversant  with  all 
the  celebrities  there,  has  never  heard  of  her  existence." 

"  My  dear  Cousin  Henrietta,"  said  Mr.  Effingham, 
languidly,  "  you  really  seem  to  sit  in  judgment  on  my 
wearisome  conversation.  I  do  not  profess  to  know 
anything  about  celebrities.  True,  I  very  frequently 
lounged  into  the  theater  in  London,  but  I  assure  you 
took  very  little  interest  in  the  plays  or  performers. 
Life  itself  is  enough  of  a  comedy  for  me,  and  I  want 
nothing  more.  I  know  nothing  of  Miss  Hallam.  She 
may  be  a  witch  of  Endor,  or  as  beautiful  as  Cleopatra, 
Queen  of  Egypt,  for  all  that  I  know.  That  I  have  not 
heard  her  proves  nothing.  The  best  actors  and  ac- 
tresses are  often  treated  with  neglect  and  indiflference." 
9 


66         fit^t  €J)catcr  in  "^Hmcrica. 

"  Well,"  said  Clara,  smiling,  "  we  soon  sliall  see  for 
ourselves,  for  there  is  papa  coming,  all  ready  dressed 
to  go,  and  I  hear  the  wheels  of  the  chariot." 

Upon  which  they  go  to  the  play-house,  which  the 
novelist  thus  describes : 

The  "  old  theatre  near  the  capitol,"  discoursed  of  in 
the  manifesto  issued  by  Mr.  Manager  Hallam,  was  so 
far  old  that  the  walls  were  well  browned  by  time,  and 
the  shutters  to  the  windows  of  a  pleasant  neutral  tint 
between  rust  and  dust  color.  The  building  had,  no 
doubt,  been  used  for  the  present  purpose  in  bygone 
times,  before  the  days  of  the  "  Virginia  Gazette,"  which 
is  our  authority  for  many  of  the  facts  here  stated,  and 
in  relation  to  the  "  Virginia  Company  of  Comedians  " — 
but  of  the  former  companies  of  "  players,"  as  my  Lord 
Hamlet  calls  them,  and  their  successes  and  misfortunes, 
printed  words  tell  us  nothing,  as  far  as  the  researches 
of  the  present  "  Chronicle  "  extend.  That  there  had 
been  such  companies  before,  however,  we  repeat,  there 
is  some  reason  to  believe ;  else  why  that  addition  "  old" 
apphed  to  the  "  theatre  near  the  capitol." 

Within,  the  play-house  presented  a  somewhat  more 
attractive  appearance.  There  was  "  box,"  "  pit,"  and 
"  gallery,"  as  in  our  own  day  ;  and  the  relative  prices 
were  arranged  in  much  the  same  manner.  The  common 
mortals  —  gentlemen  and  ladies  —  were  forced  to  oc- 
cupy the  boxes  raised  slightly  above  the  level  of  the 
stage  and  hemmed  in  by  velvet-cushioned  railings  — 
in  front  a  flower-decorated  panel  extending  all  around 


fit^t  Cljcatcr  in  3Cmcrica.  67 

the  house — and  for  this  position  they  were  moreover 
compelled  to  pay  an  admission  fee  of  seven  shilHngs 
and  sixpence.  The  demigods — so  to  speak  —  occupied 
a  more  eligible  portion  in  the  "  pit,"  from  which  they 
could  procure  a  highly  excellent  view  of  the  actors'  feet 
and  ankles,  just  on  a  level  with  their  noses ;  to  con- 
ciliate the  demigods  this  superior  advantage  had  been 
offered,  and  the  price  for  them  was  further  still  reduced 
to  five  shillings.  But  "the  gods,"  in  truth,  were  the 
real  favorites  of  the  manager.  To  attract  them  he  ar- 
ranged the  high  upper  "  gallery  "  and  left  it  untouched, 
unencumbered  by  railing,  velvet  cushions,  or  any  other 
device  ;  all  was  free  space  and  liberal  as  the  air ;  there 
were  no  troublesome  seats  for  "  the  gods,"  and  three 
shillings  and  ninepence  all  that  the  manager  would 
demand.     The  honor  of  their  presence  was  enough. 

From  the  boxes  a  stairway  led  down  to  the  stage, 
and  some  rude  scenes,  visible  at  the  edges  of  the  cur- 
tain, completed  the  outfit. 

When  Mr.  Lee  and  his  daughters  entered  the  box, 
which  had  been  reserved  for  them  next  to  the  stage, 
the  house  was  nearly  full,  and  the  neatness  of  the  edi- 
fice was  lost  sight  of  in  the  sea  of  brilliant  ladies'  faces 
and  showy  forms  of  cavaliers  which  extended,  like  a  sea 
of  glittering  foam,  around  the  semicircle  of  the  boxes. 
The  pit  was  occupied  by  well-dressed  men  of  the  lower 
class,  as  the  times  had  it,  and  from  the  gallery  pro- 
ceeded hoarse  murmurs  and  the  unforgotten  slang  of 
London. 

Many  smiles  and  bows  were  interchanged  between 
the  parties  in  the  different  boxes  and  the  young  gal- 


68         fit^t  €l)catct:  in  3Ilmcrita» 

lants,  following  the  fashion  of  the  day,  gathered  at 
each  end  of  the  stage,  and  often  walked  across,  to  ex- 
change some  polite  speech  with  the  smiling  dames  in 
the  boxes  nearest. 

Mr.  Champ  Effingham  was,  upon  the  whole,  much 
the  most  notable  fop  present,  and  his  elegant  /^/// 
mai/re  air  as  he  strutted  across  the  stage  attracted  many- 
remarks,  not  invariably  favorable.  It  was  observed, 
however,  that  when  the  Virginia-bred  youths,  with 
honest  plainness,  called  him  "  ridiculous,"  the  young 
ladies,  their  companions,  took  Mr.  Effingham's  part, 
and  defended  him  with  great  enthusiasm  ;  but  when 
they  returned  home  he  was  more  unmercifully  criti- 
cized than  he  would  otherwise  have  been. 

A  little  bell  rang,  and  the  orchestra,  represented  by 
three  or  four  foreign-looking  gentlemen,  bearded  and 
moustached,  entered  with  trumpet  and  violins.  The 
trumpet  made  the  roof  shake  indifferently  in  honor  of 
the  Prince  of  Morocco,  or  King  Richard,  or  any  other 
worthy  whose  entrance  was  marked  in  the  play-book 
"  with  a  flourish."  But  before  the  orchestra  ravished 
the  ears  of  every  one,  the  manager  came  forward  in 
the  costume  of  Bassanio,  and  made  a  low  bow.  Mr. 
Hallam  was  a  fat  little  man,  of  fifty  or  fifty-five,  with 
a  rubicund  and  somewhat  sensual  face,  and  he  ex- 
pressed extraordinary  delight  at  meeting  so  many  of 
the  "  noble  aristocracy  of  the  great  and  noble  colony 
of  Virginia "  assembled  to  witness  his  very  humble 
representation.  "  It  would  be  the  chief  and  sole  am- 
bition of  his  life,"  he  said,  "  to  please  the  gentry  who 
so  kindly  patronized  their  servants  —  himself  and  his 


associates  "  —  and  then  the  smiling  worthy  concluded 
by  bowing  lower  than  before.  Much  applause  from 
the  pit  and  gallery  and  murmurs  of  approbation  from 
the  well-bred  boxes  greeted  the  address,  and  the  or- 
chestra having  struck  up,  the  curtain  slowly  rolled 
aloft,  the  young  gallants  scattered  to  the  corner  of  the 
stage,  seating  themselves  on  stools  or  chairs  or  stand- 
ing, and  the  "  Merchant  of  Venice "  commenced. 
Bassanio,  having  assumed  a  dignified  and  lofty  part, 
embraced  Gratiano  with  courteous  and  lordly  art,  his 
friend  Antonio  offered  him  his  fortune  with  grand  mag- 
nanimity in  a  loud,  singing  voice,  worthy  the  utmost 
commendation,  and  the  first  act  proceeded  on  its  way 
in  triumph. 

The  first  act  ends,  the  scene  between  Portia  and 
Nerissa  being  omitted,  the  audience  being  highly 
pleased,  and  the  actors  receiving  a  "  grateful  guerdon 
of  applause."  What  transpires  between  the  inmates 
of  the  box  occupied  by  Effingham's  father  and  the 
Squire,  as  he  is  called,  is  manifest,  consisting  mainly 
of  the  conversation  between  the  Squire  and  the  local 
parson  that  the  Squire  had  invited  to  witness  the  play, 
who  sits  on  the  front  seat  beside  the  Squire  with  solemn 
gravity  and  rubicund  nose,  surveying  from  his  respect- 
able position  the  agitated  pit. 

"  Not  so  bad  as  you  predicted,  eh,  parson  ?  "  says 
the  Squire.  "  I  don't  think  that  fellow  Antonio  acts 
so  badly." 

"  Very  well  —  very  well,"  is  the  latter's  response. 

"  The  audience  seems  delighted.  Look  at  the  scamp 
of  a  son   of  mine,  strutting  up  to  friend  Lee's  box 


70         fit^t  €l)catcr  in  ^llmcrica, 

and  smoothing  those  enormous  ruffles  like  a  turkey 
cock." 

Effingham  leaves  the  companions  with  whom  he 
had  been  seated  on  the  stage,  interchanging  remarks 
during  the  performance  to  the  great  disgust  of  the  pit, 
and  approaching  Miss  Clara,  who  sits  nearest  the 
stage,  looking  very  beautiful  and  radiant  with  pleasure, 
asks : 

"And  how  does  my  fair  cousin  relish  the  per- 
formance ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  was  never  more  pleased  with  anything. 
And  how  do  you  like  it  ?  " 

"  Tolerably.  But  I  never  had  a  great  relish  for 
these  things." 

"  Because,  to  wit,  life  itself  is  a  comedy,"  said 
Henrietta,  laughing. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Effingham,  "  and  a  very  brilliant  one 
it  would  be  if  all  the  world  were  Miss  Henriettas.  I 
hope,  my  dear  cousin,  the  compliment  is  sufficiently 
broad." 

"  Thank  you,  sir.  I  know  how  to  take  your  fine 
speeches.     Don't  think  they  deceive  me." 

"  I  'm  rather  a  poor  hand  at  compliments,"  replied 
Effingham;  "but,  really,  it  is  hard  to  do  you  the  in- 
justice, my  fair  cousin,  of  withholding  them.  Come, 
no  reply,  for  I  see  my  Cousin  Clara  is  going  to  say 
something  more  flattering  than  what  you  are  about  to 
utter." 

"  Oh,  no,"  says  Clara,  slightly  blushing ;  "  I  was 
only  going  to  say  that  Shylock  really  frightened  me." 

"  It  was  very  well  done;  much  like  Shuter  at  Castle 


fit^t  <Iljcatcc  in  ^Cnicrica.  71 

Garden.     How   did  you  like  it,  Cousin   Henrietta  ? 
Come,  your  criticism." 

"  Oh,  what  could  you  expect  from  a  country  girl 
like  me  ? "  and  broke  off  the  conversation  by  an- 
nouncing the  approach  of  a  fox-hunter,  who  was  an 
admirer. 

"  How  I  envy  them,"  he  says  to  Clara,  applying  to 
his  nostrils,  with  a  listless  air,  a  delicate  kind  of  snuff, 
"  they  are  so  gay." 

Then  after  some  conversation  with  Clara  prepara- 
tory to  making  her  the  proffer  of  his  hand,  he  de- 
scribes his  condition  as  "  out  of  sorts,"  as  "  rusting." 

"  Yes,  more  than  rusting  —  I  take  interest  in 
scarcely  anything;  I  am  wearied  to  death  —  with 
everything.  What  is  Ufe  worth  ?  Here  are  some 
hundreds  of  persons  and  they  all  seem  delighted  with 
the  play,  which  tires  me  to  death.  I  take  no  interest 
in  it.  Shylock  and  Antonio  strut  and  spout  without 
amusing  me.  I  am  already  weary  and  everybody  else 
seems  to  be  impatient  for  the  reappearance  of  the  won- 
ders. Why  are  they  so  much  amused  ?  For  my  part 
I  am  sick  of  all  this  and  only  stay  because  you  stay. 
The  nearest  approach  to  happiness  I  make  is  in  your 
presence,"  at  which,  of  course,  the  young  lady  blushes, 
and  after  this  near  approach  he  follows  it  up  by  de- 
claring "  how  beautiful  she  is,"  that  he  really  thinks 
that  she  could  charm  away  his  melancholy  if  she 
desired,  upon  which  she  asks: 

"  How,  pray  ?  " 

"  By  smiling  at  me." 

Clara  smiled  and  said: 


72         fit^t  CJcatcr  in  ^Hmcrica. 


'*  Be  merry  then ;  indeed,  Cousin,  you  could  become 
so  again  if  you  chose.  Do  not  determine  to  find  fault 
with  everything  and  think  everything  means  you.  Seek 
novelty  ;  you  say  that  all  here  seem  to  take  pleasure  in 
the  play  while  you  do  not.  They  are  pleased  because 
it  is  new  to  them.  I  have  never  seen  a  play,  and  I  am 
highly  pleased.  If  you  have  been  often  to  the  theater 
there  is  nothing  strange  in  your  thinking  this  poor  one 
excellent,  though  it  seems  beautiful  to  me.  But  you 
will  find  usually  an  interest  in  other  things.  Try  it,  and 
see  if  my  philosophy  is  not  true." 

His  response  is  that  he  knew  but  one  means. 

"  What  is  that  ?  " 

"To  have  a  companion." 

The  meaning  suddenly  flashed  upon  her,  and  she 
turned  away. 

"  Clara,  dearest  Clara,  if  you  take  such  an  interest 
in  my  welfare  why —  " 

Sh-h-h-h  came  in  a  loud  murmur  from  the  audience, 
the  curtain  having  risen,  which  Effingham  recognizes, 
and  ejaculates : 

"  How  ridiculous,  here  in  the  theater."  Upon  which 
his  eye  suddenly  fell  upon  one  of  the  actresses,  and  he 
almost  uttered  an  exclamation.  It  was  the  unknown 
lady  of  the  wood. 

The  novelist  continues : 

The  unknown  lady  was  no  gentle  Virginia  maiden, 
no  "lady,"  as  she  had  said  with  perfect  calmness  at  their 
meeting  —  only  one  of  the  company  of  comedians. 
Her  singular  expression  when  she  uttered  the  words, 


5ph:.0t  <n3catCT  in  5tmmca.  73 

"  I  think  you  will  see  me  again,"  occurred  to  the 
young  man,  and  he  wondered  that  this  easy  solution 
of  the  riddle  had  not  occurred  to  him  at  once. 

"  What  was  her  name  ?  "  Mr.  Effingham  drew  forth 
his  bill  and  saw  opposite  the  name  of  Portia,  Miss 
Beatrice  Hallam. 

"  Ah,  yes,"  he  said,  carelessly,  "  the  same  we  were 
speculating  upon  this  morning.  Let  us  see  how  Portia 
looks,  and  what  change  the  footlights  work  in  her  face." 

He  sat  down  in  the  corner  of  the  stage  upon  a  wicker 
chair  and  scanned  Portia  critically.  Her  costume  was 
faultless.  It  consisted  of  a  gown  and  underskirt  of 
fawn-colored  silk  trimmed  with  silver,  and  a  single 
band  of  gold  encircled  each  wrist,  clearly  relieved 
against  the  white,  finely-rounded  arm.  Her  hair,  which 
was  a  beautiful  chestnut,  had  been  carried  back  from 
the  temples  and  powdered  after  the  fashion  of  the 
time,  and  around  her  beautiful,  swan-like  neck  the 
young  woman  wore  a  necklace  of  pearls  of  rare  bril- 
liancy. Thus  the  costume  of  the  character  defied  criti- 
cism, and  Mr.  Effingham  passed  on  to  the  face  and 
figure.  These  we  have  already  described.  The  coun- 
tenance of  Beatrice  Hallam  wore  the  same  simple,  yet 
firm  and  collected  expression,  which  Mr.  Effingham 
had  observed  in  their  first  interview,  and  her  figure  had 
the  same  indefinable  grace  and  beauty.  Every  move- 
ment which  she  made  might  have  suited  a  royal  palace, 
and  in  her  large,  brilliant  eyes  Mr.  Effingham  sought 
the  least  trace  of  confusion.  She  surveyed  the  audience, 
whilst  the  Prince  of  Morocco  was  uttering  his  speech, 
with  perfect  simplicity,  but  her  eyes  not  for  a  single 
moment  rested  on  the  young  men  collected  at  the  cor- 


74  jfir^t  OTljcatcr  in  3llmcrtca» 


ner  of  the  stage.  For  her  they  seemed  to  have  no 
existence,  and  she  turned  to  the  Prince  again.  That 
gentleman  having  uttered  his  prescribed  number  of 
Hnes,  Portia  advanced  graciously  towards  him  and 
addressed  him.  Her  carelessness  was  gone.  She  no 
longer  betrayed  either  indifference  or  coldness ;  she 
was  the  actress,  with  her  role  to  sustain.  She  com- 
menced in  a  voice  of  noble  and  queen-like  courtesy, 
a  voice  of  pure  music  and  clear  utterance,  so  to  speak, 
such  as  few  lips  possess  the  power  of  giving  forth. 
Every  word  rang  and  told ;  there  was  no  hurry,  no 
slurring,  no  hesitation.  It  was  not  an  actress  deliver- 
ing a  set  speech,  but  the  noble  Portia,  doing  the  honors 
of  her  beautiful  palace  at  Belmont.  The  scene  ended 
with  great  applause  —  the  young  woman  had  evidently 
produced  a  most  favorable  impression  on  the  audience. 
But  she  seemed  wholly  unconscious  of  this  compli- 
ment, and  made  her  exit  quite  calmly. 

A  buzz  ran  through  the  theater;  the  audience  were 
discussing  the  merits  o{  Portia.  On  the  stage,  too,  she 
was  the  subject  of  many  comments,  and  this  continued 
until  Lancelot  made  his  appearance  and  went  througli 
his  speech ;  then  Portia  reai)peared  with  the  Prince,  and 
was  greeted  with  great  applause. 

Mr.  Effingham  leaned  forward  and  touched  the 
young  woman's  sleeve, 

"  Come,"  he  said  with  easy  carelessness,  and  scarcely 
moderating  his  voice ;  "  come,  fair  Portia,  while  that 
tiresome  fellow  is  making  his  speech,  and  talk  to  me  a 
little.  We  are  old  acquaintances,  and  you  are  indebted 
to  me  for  directing  you  home." 


fit^t  Cljcatcr  in  ^tmcrica*  75 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Beatrice,  turning  her  head  sHghtly; 
"  but  pardon  nie  —  I  have  my  part  to  attend  to." 

"  I  don't  care." 

"  Excuse  me,  sir ;  but  I  do." 

"  Really,  madamc,  you  are  very  stiff  for  an  actress. 
Is  it  so  very  unusual  a  thing  to  ask  a  moment's 
conversation  ?  " 

"  I  know  that  it  is  the  fashion  in  London  and  else- 
where, sir,  but  I  dislike  it.  It  destroys  my  conception 
of  the  character,"  she  said,  calmly. 

Mr.  Effingham  laughed.  "  Come  here  again,  and 
talk  to  nie,"  he  said.  "  Did  you  not  say  we  should 
meet  again  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir ;  and  I  also  said  I  was  not  a  lady." 

"  Well,  what  is  the  meaning  of  that  addition  ?  " 

"  It  means,  sir,  that  being  an  actress  I  am  not  at 
liberty  to  amuse  myself  here  as  I  might  were  I  a  lady 
in  a  drawing  room.  Pardon  me,  sir,"  she  added, 
calmly,  "  I  am  neglecting  what  I  have  engaged  to  do  — 
play  ForiiaP 

And  the  young  woman,  quietly  disengaging  her  sleeve 
from  Mr.  Effingham's  fingers,  moved  away  to  another 
part  of  the  stage. 

"  Here  is  a  pretty  affair,"  said  Mr.  Effingham  to  him- 
self, as  he  fell  back  languidly  into  the  chair  from  which, 
however,  he  had  not  deigned  to  rise  wholly  when  ad- 
dressing the  young  actress.  "  What  are  things  coming 
to  when  an  actress  treats  a  gentleman  in  this  manner. 
I  really  believe  the  girl  thinks  I  am  not  good  enough 
for  her.  '  Pardon  me,  sir,'  was  there  ever  such  insuf- 
ferable prudery  and  affectation.     No  doubt  she  wishes 


76         fit^t  Ctjcatcc  in  3lmccica. 


to  catch  me,  and  commences  with  this  piquant  piece 
of  acting,  or,  perhaps,"  added  the  elegant  young  gen- 
tleman, smoothing  his  frill,  "she  fell  in  love  with  me 
the  other  day  when  we  met  and  is  afraid  she  will  be- 
tray herself.  Not  talk  when  I  desire  to  talk  with  her, 
indeed,  and  yonder  all  of  these  people  have  seen  her 
careless  treatment  of  me  and  are  laughing  at  me.  For- 
tunately I  am  proof  against  these  jeers.  Come,  come, 
let  us  see  if  Miss  Portia  will  treat  me  as  badly  next  time." 

For/ia  entered  next  with  the  Prince  of  Afragon,  and 
while  that  gentleman  was  addressing  the  caskets,  Mr. 
Effingham  again  applied  himself  to  the  task  of  forcing 
the  young  woman  to  converse  with  him. 

"  Why  did  you  treat  me  so  just  now  ?  "  he  said,  with 
abrupt  carelessness. 

"  How,  sir." 

"  You  refused  to  talk  to  me." 

"  I  had  my  part  to  perform." 

"  That  is  no  excuse." 

"  Besides,  sir,"  added  the  young  woman,  surveying 
Mr.  Effingham  with  an  indifferent  glance,  "  I  know 
you  only  very  slightly." 

"  Know  me  only  slightly !  "said  Mr.  Effingham  affect- 
ing surprise. 

"  A  chance  meeting  is  very  slight  acquaintance,  sir; 
but  I  offer  this  as  no  apology  for  refusing  to  do  what  I 
am  now  doing,  converse  with  you  on  the  stage." 

"  Really,  one  would  say  you  were  a  queen  speaking 
to  a  subject  instead  of  an  actress  —  " 

"  Honored  with  the  attentions  of  a  gentleman,  you 
would  add,  sir,"  she  interrupted,  quite  calmly." 


fit^t  <njcntcr  in  5(!mcncn.  77 

"  As  you  please." 

"  Pray  speak  to  me  no  more,  sir.  I  forget  my  part, 
and  the  audience  are  looking  at  you." 

"  Let  them." 

"  I  see  some  angry  faces,"  said  the  young  woman; 
"they  do  not  understand  the  fashions  of  London,  sir." 

"  What  care  I." 

"  Please  release  my  sleeve,  sir  —  that  is  my  line." 

The  gallery  uttered  a  prolonged  hiss  as  Portia  dis- 
engaged her  arm.  Mr.  Effingham  turned  around  and 
looked  up  to  the  gallery  from  which  the  hiss  came; 
this  glance  of  haughty  defiance  might  have  provoked 
another  exhibition  of  the  same  sort,  but  Portia  at  that 
moment  commenced  her  speech. 

Thereafter  the  young  woman  came  no  more  near 
Mr.  Efiingham,  and  treated  that  gentleman's  moody 
glances  with  supreme  disregard.  What  was  going  on 
in  Mr.  Effingham's  mind,  and  why  did  he  lose  some 
of  his  careless  listlessness,  when,  clasping  her  beautiful 
hands,  the  lovely  girl,  raising  her  eyes  to  heaven  like 
one  of  the  old  Italian  pictures,  uttered  that  sublime  dis- 
course on  the  "  quality  of  mercy  " ;  and  how  did  it  hap- 
pen that  she  sobbed,  almost,  in  that  tender,  magical 

voice : 

But  mercy  is  above  this  sceptered  sway ; 
It  is  enthroned  in  the  hearts  of  kings ; 
It  is  an  attribute  of  God  himself. 

How  did  it  chance  that  Mr.  Effingham  led  the  en- 
thusiastic applause  and  absolutely  arose  erect  in  the 
excess  of  his  enthusiasm  ? 

As  she  passed   him  in  going  out  he  made  her  a 


78         fit^t  Cfjcatcc  in  3tmcrica» 

low  bow  and  said,  "Pardon  me!    You  are  a  great 
actress." 

The  play  proceeded  and  ended  amid  universal  ap- 
plause. Mr.  Hallam  led  out  Portia  in  response  to 
uproarious  calls,  and  thanked  the  audience  for  their 
kindness  to  his  daughter.  Beatrice  received  the  ap- 
plause with  her  habitual  calmness,  inclining  her  head 
slightly  as  she  disappeared,  and  the  audience  separated, 
rolling  well  pleased  to  their  homes.* 

In  1886  a  large  quarto  volume  was  published  entitled 
"  A  History  of  the  American  Theatre  before  the  Revolu- 
tion," by  George  O.  Seilhamer.  There  appeared  to  be 
no  occasion  for  a  special  history  of  this  particular  period 
of  twenty-nine  years,  that  is  from  1 749  to  the  Revolution, 
as  Dunlap's  history  extended  from  1752  to  about  181 7, 
and  what  was  known  at  the  time  of  Mr.  Seilhamer's  pub- 
lication respecting  the  theater  in  North  America  before 
1752  had  already  been  published  in  Ireland's  "  History 
of  the  New  York  Stage,"  and  in  the  paper  here  re- 
printed, except  one  item  to  be  referred  to  hereafter. 

*  Dunlap  gives  the  full  cast  of  the  "  Merchant  of  Venice,"  the 
first  play  enacted  by  the  Hallam  Company  in  America,  at  Wil- 
liamsburg, September  5, 1752,  as  he  received  it  from  Lewis  Hal- 
lam, Jr.,  by  which  it  appears  that  Mrs.  Hallam,  the  manager's 
wife,  was  the  Portia,  that  Miss  Hallam  represented  Jessica, 
"her  first  appearance  on  any  stage," and  an  actor  named  Malone 
played  Shylock.  The  author  of  the  novel  states  that  his  wish 
was  simply  to  depict  some  Virginia  scenes  and  personages  ten 
years  before  the  Revolution,  or  the  Virginia  of  1765,  and  trusts 
that  his  picture  is  at  least  truthful  as  far  as  it  goes,  which  it  prob- 
ably is,  with  tlie  anachronism  of  the  appearance,  in  the  year  1765, 


f  ir^t  Cljcatrr  in  3tnifrifa.  79 

There  were  some  further  corrections  to  be  made  to 
Dunlai)'s  history,  but  they  were  not  very  important  or 
numerous,  and  some  additional  information  to  be 
added  respecting  theatrical  performances  in  Maryland 
and  Pennsylvania  that  was  new  and  interesting.  This 
was  included  in  this  special  history,  which,  in  addition 
to  what  had  been  previously  published,  was  largely 
made  up  of  the  full  casts,  as  they  are  called  in  theat- 
rical i)arlance,  of  plays  given  at  particular  dates  during 
the  Colonial  period;  that  is,  the  name  of  the  performer 
of  each  part,  taken  from  the  small  play-bills  that  are 
printed  for  the  use  of  the  audience.  As  it  is  the  cus- 
tom in  theaters  for  the  prompter  to  keep  a  file  of  these 
bills  each  season,  and  the  habit  of  some  persons  to  keep 
the  play-bill  of  any  performance  they  have  seen,  con- 
siderable collections  of  these  small  play-bills  have  been  • 
preserved,  and  exist  in  private  collections  or  in  institu- 
tions or  clubs,  of  which  Mr.  Seilhamer  has  made  copi- 
ous use,  and  has  also  inserted  in  this  volume  long  lists 
of  the  performances  given  at  particular  dates  and  tabu- 
lated statements  of  the  leading  parts  of  actors  and 

of  Miss  Hallam,  a  young  girl  of  about  eighteen,  as  Portia,  thirteen 
years  after  she  had  made  her  first  appearance  on  the  stage  in  the 
same  play  as  Jessica.  But  liberties  of  this  kind  are  pardonable 
in  a  novelist.  They  are  taken  by  great  authors.  Scott,  in  his 
novel  of  Kenilworth,  the  scene  of  which  romance  is  laid  in  the 
year  1575,  represents  Lord  Leicester,  in  passing  through  the 
court-rooms,  stopping  to  compliment  Shakespeare  on  the  success 
of  his  recent  poem  of  Venus  and  Adonis,  Shakespeare  being  then 
eleven  years  of  age.  The  poem  was  printed  in  1593,  eighteen 
years  after  the  event  described  by  the  novelist,  or  when  Shake- 
speare was  twenty-nine  years  of  age. 


So         f  ir^t  €t)catcr  in  3lmccica» 


actresses,  and  the  statements  of  performances,  culled 
from  the  Colonial  newspapers,  by  all  of  which  insertions 
the  volume  is  augmented  to  the  magnitude  of  a  large 
quarto. 

Dunlap,  while  stating  that  play-bills  and  theatrical 
advertisements  are  of  assistance,  or,  as  he  expressed 
it,  "  throw  light "  (that  is,  they  may  assist  the  histor- 
ian in  the  construction  of  his  narrative),  evidently 
thought  that  this  minute  information,  or  detail,  of  this 
kind  was  not,  save  in  exceptional  instances,  to  be  in- 
serted bodily  in  a  history,  for  he  apologizes  to  his 
readers  for  inserting  three  full  casts  of  plays  that  were 
performed  in  the  years  1752,  53,  and  54,  in  these  words : 
"  Particularity  of  this  kind  would  be  unnecessary  in  re- 
gard to  events  of  more  recent  date  and  <??//  of  place  in 
a  history  of  a  theatre,  but  in  this  early  stage  of  the 
work  before  us,  we  think  a  play-bill  a  valuable  source 
of  information  and  gladly  insert  it,"*  and  in  this  respect 
we  incline  to  the  opinion  of  Dunlap. 

But  Seilhamer  does  not.  In  this  age  of  many  books, 
the  aim  of  able  historical  writers  is  condensation  with 
clearness,  but  with  him  it  appears  to  have  been  expan- 
sion with  pledty  of  material ;  for  while  Dunlap,  in  a 
history  extending  over  sixty-five  years,  inserts  but  three 
full  casts  of  plays,  Seilhamer,  in  one  extending  over  only 
twenty-nine,  years,  inserts  253,  and  adds  also  one-fifth 
of  that  number  of  theatrical  advertisements  and  numer- 
ous lists  of  performances  at  difiFerent  dates,  and  tables 
of  prominent  performers'  leading  parts,  which  are  all  in- 

*  2  Dunlap,  24,  4S  :   London  ed. 


fir^t  Cljcatct:  in  ^Hmcrica*  si 

corporated  with  the  text,  and  form  a  ])art  of  the  narra- 
tive. I  apprehend  that  it  was  the  chief  material  that 
he  had ;  that  he  meant  to  supplant  Dunlap  as  the  future 
historian  of  the  American  Theater,  and  that  the  amount 
of  other  information  that  was  new,  that  is,  that  had 
not  previously  been  published,  would  have  been  for 
such  a  purpose  so  insufficient  that  it  was  necessary  to 
swell  the  book  out  to  the  dimension  of  a  large  quarto 
with  material  of  this  kind,  connected  together  by  a 
slight  thread  of  narrative;  material  of  which  there  was 
an  abundant  supply,  for  he  followed  up  this  publica- 
tion by  two  more  of  the  same  kind  in  the  years  1889 
and  1 89 1,  each,  however,  distinguished  from  the  other 
by  a  different  title,  the  whole  ending  in  1797. 

To  his  manifest  desire  to  supplant  Dunlap  there 
could  be  no  objection,  if  he  had  the  ability  to  produce 
a  better  and  more  interesting  book.  On  the  contrary, 
a  history  of  the  American  Stage  from  the  earliest 
knowledge  we  have  of  it  to  the  time  of  publication, 
by  a  writer  who  had  the  leisure  to  make  the  necessary 
research,  and  the  art  so  to  arrange  his  material  as  to 
make  the  work  reliable  and  readable,  would  be  a  con- 
tribution to  literature.  Seilhamer's  opinion  of  what  he 
could  do,  and  had  done,  is  subsequently  shown  by  his 
constant  abuse  of  Dunlap  throughout  these  three  vol- 
umes, for  Dunlap's  name  rarely,  if  ever,  occurs  without 
his  applying  to  it  some  derogatory,  contemptuous, 
or  other  abusive  epithet.  Such  as  the  "  marvelous 
chronicler,"  "  the  quality  of  blundering  for  which  he 
was  remarkable,"  or  some  like  term  or  phrase  to  belittle 
him.     He  says  in  respect  to  his  history,  that  "  never 


82  fit^t  Zf^cata  in  America* 

was  a  book  written  to  throw  light  upon  a  subject  that 
so  completely  confused  it."  "  His  dates  are  always 
wrong."  "  He  presents  to  the  world  the  remarkable 
example  of  a  man  who  wrote  the  annals  of  the  Ameri- 
can Stage  from  some  scattered  memoranda,  and  out 
of  his  own  head,"  and  refers  to  the  "  readiness  of 
assumption  he  was  apt  to  resort  to  in  the  absence  of 
facts,"  "  the  consequences  of  which  are "  he  says, 
"  that  the  stream  of  American  theatrical  history  was 
poisoned  at  its  source  " ;  that  "  his  inaccuracies  are  so 
many  and  so  unreasonable  that  it  is  impossible  not  to 
wonder  at  the  mental  equipment  of  a  man  that  could 
be  guilty  of  them."  "  His  statements  of  facts  are  " 
declared  to  be  "  always  misstatements  in  whole  or 
in  part."  He  finds  him  "  inexcusable  for  not  know- 
ing the  date  of  the  first  appearance  of  a  certain 
actress  and  for  his  want  of  knowledge  of  an  early 
American  play."  He  is  declared  to  have  been  a  fail- 
ure in  everything;  as  an  historian,  a  novelist,  an  ar- 
tist, a  theatrical  manager,  and  as  a  dramatist.  A  drama 
of  his  is  a  failure  for  the  want  of  skill  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  plot,  and  the  insufficiency  of  the  characters 
and  the  incidents ;  another  is  disposed  of  as  a  "  turgid 
melodrama  without  action  " ;  all  his  plays  and  adapta- 
tions of  plays  are  condemned  as  having  passed  into  de- 
served oblivion ;  but  as  regards  the  history  something 
had  to  be  conceded,  and  it  is  therefore  said  that,  "  full  of 
mistakes  as  it  is  —  mistakes  for  which  it  is  impossible  to 
forgive  him,"  it  has  some  features  that  commend  it ; 
such  as  the  account  he  was  able  to  give  from  personal 
knowledge  of  the  players  that  were  on  the  American 


f  ir^t  €j)catcr  in  ^tmcrica.         83 

stage  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  century  after  the  Rcvohi- 
tion,  which  it  is  conceded  "the  world  could  ill  afford  to 
lose,"  and  might  well  be  conceded,  as  it  is  more  inter- 
esting than  anything  in  Seilhamer's  three  volumes.  But 
even  this  is  qualified  by  his  saying,  in  respect  to  the  Dun- 
lap  Society  being  named  after  him,  that  "  there  proba- 
bly never  was  a  writer  less  deserving  of  such  an  honor 
than  Dunlap,"  that  his  plays  were  "  without  merit, 
either  for  stage  represention  or  as  literary  productions, 
and  that  his  history  was  "  at  once  dull  and  inaccurate," 
with  the  further  observation  that  he  "  might  have  been 
looked  upon  as  an  interesting  character,  had  he  not 
been  at  once  jealous  and  abusive  of  every  one  outside 
of  his  circle  of  friends,  ignoring  the  efforts  of  others 
not  inferior  to  his  own." 

It  may  be  said  of  this  array  of  accusations  against 
Dunlap  that,  except  in  some  matters  of  little  importance, 
they  are  merely  Seilhamer's  own  conclusions  or  assump- 
tions, and  derive  no  additional  weight  from  any  facts 
stated  in  his  volumes.  It  is  a  literary  mistake  for  an 
historical  writer  to  indulge  in  such  continued  abuse  as 
this  of  a  previous  writer  on  the  same  subject.  If  the  first 
historian  has  made  errors  or  mistakes,  it  is  sufficient 
quietly  to  correct  them ;  but  to  constantly  abuse  and 
belittle  him  is  objectionable  and  offensive  on  the  part 
of  the  second,  for  it  is  continually  reiterating  his  own 
superiority  and  imjjortance  as  an  historian. 

It  is  especially  so  in  this  writer,  for  he  is  as  prone  to 
indulge  in  conjectures  or  assumptions  that  afterward 
prove  to  be  unfounded,  as  he  asserts  Dunlap  is,  and  in 
matters  quite  as  important ;  with  this  difference,  that. 


84  f  irr^t  €i)catct:  in  511nicrica. 

when  he  refers  to  anything  of  this  kind  on  the  part  of 
Dunlap,  it  is  stigmatized  as  "  the  blunder  of  an  ignorant 
historian,"  one  example  of  which  will  suffice.  When 
Dunlap  stated  that  it  was  the  Hallam  Company  that  first 
introduced  the  drama  in  America,  he  also  stated  that 
this  was  communicated  to  him  by  one  of  that  company, 
Lewis  Hallam,  Jr.,  and  which  he  might  reasonably  sup- 
pose to  be  true,  coming,  as  it  did,  from  one  of  that  com- 
pany; but  when  Seilhamer  states  that  "  the  history  of  the 
drama  in  this  country  may  be  said  to  begin  with  the 
production  of  Addison's  '  Cato '  in  Philadelphia  in 
August,  1749,"  he  does  so  upon  the  authority  only  of  the 
item  before  referred  to,  which  is  an  entry  in  a  manuscript 
journal  kept  by  one  John  Smith  of  Philadelphia,  of  the 
date  of  August  12,  1749,  recording  that  Smith  had  been 
at  a  friend's  house  whose  daughter  was  going,  as  one 
of  a  company,  to  hear  the  tragedy  of  "  Cato,"  which 
at  that  time  was  the  earliest  reference  known  to  the 
performance  of  a  play  in  the  American  Colonies,  and 
which  Seilhamer  assumed  to  have  been  the  commence- 
ment of  the  drama  in  this  country.  Now  it  had  been 
previously  shown  in  the  paper  here  reprinted,  that  there 
was  a  play-house  in  New  York  in  1733,  sixteen  years 
before.  This  interfered  with  such  a  conclusion,  and  as 
he  could  not  avoid  referring  to  this  fact,  he  did  so  very 
boldly,  declaring  that  "  as  an  attempt  to  transplant  the 
drama  to  the  Colonies,  it  had  no  effect  upon  the  de- 
velopment of  the  American  stage,"  giving  this  opinion 
respecting  a  period  of  which  he  knew  nothing,  for  we 
now  know  that  many  years  before  this  performance 
of  "  Cato  "  in  Philadelphia,  there  were  play-houses  in 


fit^t  ^tjcatcir  in  5llmnrifa»  85 


New  York,  Virginia,  and  South  Carolina ;  that  a  play 
was  acted  in  the  Colonies  in  1 718,  and  that  plays  may 
have  been  performed  there  as  early  as  1702. 

It  appears  from  "Watson's  Annals  of  Philadelphia  " 
that  there  were  theatrical  performances  in  Philadelphia 
in  January,  1749,  seven  months  before  this  performance 
of  "Cato"  mentioned  in  Smith's  journal,  and  Dun- 
lap  also  refers  to  theatrical  performances  there  in  1749 ; 
and  Watson  and  Dunlap  were  of  opinion  that  these 
were  performances  by  amateurs,  for  which  Seilhamer 
takes  Dunlap  to  account  for,  as  he  calls  it, "  a  snap  judg- 
ment "  and  "  asserting  what  he  knew  nothing  about  " ; 
"  who,"  he  proceeds  to  say, "  had  made  up  his  mind  that 
the  drama  in  America  should  begin  with  the  Hallam 
Company,  and  so  contemptuously  ignored  all  previous 
theatrical  efforts  " ;  whilst  he,  Seilhamer,  on  the  contrary 
was  of  the  opinion  that  this  performance  of  "  Cato,"  in 
August,  1749,  was  by  Kean  &  Murray's  Company, 
who,  it  is  known,  came  from  Philadelphia  to  New  York 
a  year  and  a  half  afterwards;  which  may  have  been  the 
fact,  but  there  is  no  certainty  about  it,  and  for  all  that 
appears  to  the  contrary,  Dunlap  and  Watson  may  have 
been  right ;  but  Seilhamer  evidently  determined  to 
dethrone  Dunlap,  and  he  therefore  not  only  assumed 
this,  but  went  much  further,  by  stating  that  it  was 
"  certain  "  that  Thomas  Kean  was  the  first  actor  to 
attempt  Richard  III.  on  the  American  stage.  As 
Colley  Cibber's  alteration  of  "  Richard  III."  was  pro- 
duced at  Drury  Lane  in  1700,  more  than  half  a  century 
before  Thomas  Kean  played  the  character  in  New 
York,  and  as  Cibber's  "  Richard  III."  was  from  the 


86         fit^t  Cljcato:  in  5llmcrica. 

beginning  and  for  more  than  a  century  afterwards  one 
of  the  most  popular  plays  that  was  during  that  period 
produced  upon  the  English  stage,  it  is  as  likely  to 
have  been  played  at  Williamsburg  or  Charlestown 
or  in  New  York  in  1733  as  any  other;  a  period  when 
we  know  that  they  had  theaters  at  these  jjlaces,  but 
have  very  little  information  as  to  what  plays  were  per- 
formed in  them.  And  in  both  these  erroneous  assertions, 
that  is,  that  the  history  of  the  American  theater  began 
in  1 749,  and  that  Kean  was  the  first  to  play  Richard  III. 
in  the  Colonies,  Seilhamer  appears  to  have  been  uncon- 
scious that  he  was  doing  the  very  thing  for  which 
he  so  severely  censured  Dunlap,  that  is,  giving  a 
"snap  judgment  by  asserting  what  he  knew  nothing 
about." 

Dunlap  was,  it  is  true,  not  remarkable  as  a  dramatist 
or  otherwise  as  a  writer,  but  he  was  quite  equal  to  the 
average  literary  man  in  this  country  at  that  time.  It 
was  a  period  that  gave  rise  to  the  query  in  the  "  Edin- 
burgh Review,"  "  Who  reads  an  American  book  ?  " 
Cooper,  to  whom  Dunlap  dedicated  his  history,  had 
not  yet  appeared,  nor  Halleck,  Drake,  or  Bryant  as 
poets ;  and  in  what  might  be  called  American  dramatic 
literature,  such  as  it  was,  Dunlap  was  then  the  most 
prominent  and  the  most  industrious.  He  wrote,  in- 
cluding adaptations  from  Kotzebue  and  others,  no  less 
than  eighty-seven  plays.  The  writer  of  the  article  in 
the  *'  New-York  Times,"  from  which  I  have  quoted, 
respecting  the  theater  in  Charleston  in  1736,  mentions 
Dunlap  as  the  "  first  and  most  painstaking  of  the  his- 
torians of  the  American  stage  "  ;  which  is  true,  for  if  it 


f  ir^t  ^{jcatcr  in  ^Cnicrira.  87 

had  not  been  for  exertions  of  this  nature  on  his  part,  a 
large  portion  of  the  early  history  of  the  American  the- 
ater which  is  interesting  would  have  been  lost.  He 
was  also  the  historian  of  the  arts  of  design  in  this 
country,  which  embraced  an  account  of  our  painters, 
from  William  Watson  in  17 15  to  William  Page  in  1832, 
which  is  full  of  material  not  elsewhere  found,  and 
which  no  one  was  so  competent  to  gather  as  himself. 
He  wrote  a  history  of  the  State  of  New  York,  which, 
in  the  continuation  of  the  narrative  to  the  time  of  pub- 
lication, supplied  a  want  that  it  still  continues  to  sup- 
ply ;  and  while,  as  a  portrait  painter,  he  was  neither  a 
Stuart  nor  a  Jarvis,  he  was  at  least  a  respectable  limner, 
and  the  statement  of  Seilhamer  that  "  he  painted  numer- 
ous portraits  with  sketches  of  his  theatrical  contempo- 
raries, most  of  them  wretched  caricatures,"  is  but  an 
exhibition  of  the  writer's  ignorance  or  of  his  malevo- 
lence. 

The  Dunlap  Society  was  formed  for  the  printing  of 
papers  connected  with  the  history  of  the  American 
theater,  or  reprinting  what  had  become  scarce  upon 
that  subject  and  was  worth  preserving.  Societies  of  a 
like  general  nature  have  been  formed  in  England  and 
in  this  country,  which  have  usually  been  named  after 
some  individual  who  at  an  early  period  was  promi- 
nently identified  with  the  subject  matter  in  which  the 
society  is  interested ;  and  when  what  has  been  here 
stated  respecting  Dunlap  is  considered,  with  the  fact 
that  he  was  the  first  historian  of  the  American  theater, 
and  the  purpose  for  which  the  Dunlap  Society  was 
formed,  it  appears  to  me  that  the  choice  of  his  name 


88         f  ir^t  €t)catcr  in  31nicrica, 

for  it  was  as  appropriate,  if  not  more  so,  than  that  of 
any  other  American  of  that  period. 

The  concluding  illustration  is  a  facsimile  of  the  old- 
est American  play-bill  as  far  as  known,  the  original  of 
which  is  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  J.  McKee 
of  New  York.  It  is  thought  worthy  of  insertion  as  a 
curiosity,  and  not  as  approving  Mr.  Seilhamer's  exten- 
sive use  of  such  material,  which,  he  says,  is  "introduced 
as  a  part  of  the  record  which  it  is  the  aim  of  this  work 
to  preserve  with  as  much  completeness  as  possible," 
and  again,  that  "the  monument  of  the  actors  is  the 
record  of  their  work  in  the  newspapers,"  and  it  is  due 
in  justice  to  him  to  state  that  in  the  two  later  volumes, 
and  especially  in  the  third,  there  is  much  information 
that  is  new  and  interesting,  the  result,  evidently,  of  a 
very  thorough  examination  of  the  Colonial  and  other 
newspapers  until  within  a  few  years  of  the  commence- 
ment of  the  present  century. 


^ 


.,  J<-  ^  _S  ^  a,  "^   fiq 

y  <  o  ixi-5  ^    O 


fit^t  <Iljcatcr  in  3(!nicrifa.  89 


A  CONSIDERATION  OF  THE  OBJECTIONS 
MADE   TO   THE   STAGE. 

THIS  supplement  began  with  the  statement  that 
among  the  earhest  information  that  we  possess 
respecting  the  drama  in  America,  is  a  passage  in  a  let- 
ter objecting  to  the  performance  of  a  phiy,  and  it  may 
be  appropriately  closed  by  a  brief  enumeration  of  the 
objections  generally  made  to  the  theater,  and  the  con- 
clusion that  seems  to  follow  from  a  review  of  them. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  those  who  object  to  the 
theater  altogether  that  they  rarely,  if  ever,  give  any 
consideration  to  the  origin  of  the  drama,  to  its  long  con- 
tinuance, or  appreciate  that  it  will  continue  as  long  as 
civilization  continues,  and  this  applies  as  well  to  those 
who  have  written  elaborate  treatises  against  it,  like 
Jeremy  CoUier,  as  to  those  who  object  to  it  gener- 
ally. The  briefest  form  of  stating  this  consideration  is 
that  the  theater  has  its  origin  in  human  nature.  In  the 
researches  made  as  to  its  origin  it  is  found  that  it  has 
sprung  up  spontaneously  among  different  peoples,  and 
has  not  been  transmitted  by  one  people  more  ad- 
vanced in  civilization  to  another  that  was  less  so. 
Thus  the  rise  of  the  drama,  such  as  it  is,  in  India  and 
in  China  has  in  no  way  been  influenced  by  the  Greeks, 
who  carried  the  cultivation  of  it  to  a  higher  degree 
than  any  other  people  of  antiquity.  The  oldest  civili- 
zation with  which  we  are  acquainted  is  that  of  Egypt. 
Whether  it  existed  among  the  Egyptians,  whether  they 
had  what  we  call  a  theater,  the  extensive  researches 


fit^t  Zl^ccitct  in  311nicrifa.  89 


A  CONSIDERATION  OF  THE  OBJECTIONS 
MADE   TO   THE   STAGE. 

THIS  supplement  began  with  the  statement  that 
among  the  earhest  information  that  we  possess 
respecting  the  drama  in  America,  is  a  passage  in  a  let- 
ter objecting  to  the  performance  of  a  play,  and  it  may 
be  appropriately  closed  by  a  brief  enumeration  of  the 
objections  generally  made  to  the  theater,  and  the  con- 
clusion that  seems  to  follow  from  a  review  of  them. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  those  who  object  to  the 
theater  altogether  that  they  rarely,  if  ever,  give  any 
consideration  to  the  origin  of  the  drama,  to  its  long  con- 
tinuance, or  appreciate  that  it  will  continue  as  long  as 
civilization  continues,  and  this  applies  as  well  to  those 
who  have  written  elaborate  treatises  against  it,  like 
Jeremy  Collier,  as  to  those  who  object  to  it  gener- 
ally. The  briefest  form  of  stating  this  consideration  is 
that  the  theater  has  its  origin  in  human  nature.  In  the 
researches  made  as  to  its  origin  it  is  found  that  it  has 
sprung  up  spontaneously  among  different  peoples,  and 
has  not  been  transmitted  by  one  people  more  ad- 
vanced in  civilization  to  another  that  was  less  so. 
Thus  the  rise  of  the  drama,  such  as  it  is,  in  India  and 
in  China  has  in  no  way  been  influenced  by  the  Greeks, 
who  carried  the  cultivation  of  it  to  a  higher  degree 
than  any  other  people  of  antiquity.  The  oldest  civili- 
zation with  which  we  are  acquainted  is  that  of  Egypt. 
Whether  it  existed  among  the  Egyptians,  whether  they 
had  what  we  call  a  theater,  the  extensive  researches 


qo         fit^t  ^()fatcr  in  America. 


tliat  have  been  made  within  the  present  century  so  far 
as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain  do  not  indicate,*  but 
that  it  existed  at  a  very  early  period  in  China,  in  Persia, 
and  in  India  we  have  ample  evidence,  and  in  China 
and  India  it  has  from  its  beginning  been  a  recreation 
greatly  enjoyed  by  the  people ;  to  which  may  be  added 
as  a  general  observation  that  certain  races  have  more 
aptitude  for  the  enjoyment  of  it  than  others,  and  greater 
natural  capacity  either  as  a  gift  from  nature  or  for 
acquiring  what  is  requisite  in  the  actor  or  dramatist. 
That  some  men  are  endowed  by  nature  in  a  higher 
degree  than  others  with  the  qualities  that  make  a  man 
eminent  as  a  dramatist  or  an  actor  is  sufficiently  indi- 
cated in  the  one  case  by  Shakespeare,  and  in  the  other 
by  Garrick,  of  the  latter  of  whom  it  may  be  said,  in  the 
language  of  Mr.  Baker,  the  historian  of  the  London 
stage,  that  "  without  'any  previous  apprenticeship, 
preparation,  or  drudgery,  at  a  remote  end  of  the  town 
that  had  hitherto  been  as  unknown  to  fashion  as  the 
wilds  of  Africn,  without  preliminary  puffing  of  any  kind, 

*  I  consulted  Dr.  Dickerman,  the  most  eminent  Egyptologist 
in  this  country,  upon  this  subject,  and  his  observation  was  this: 
The  state  of  mind  and  the  condition  of  society  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians  were  not  such  as  would  incline  them  to  theatrical  rep- 
resentations. They  had  athletic  sports,  games,  such  as  draughts 
or  checkers,  and  games  of  chance,  but  not  such  a  disposition  as 
brought  people  together  to  witness  anything.  None  of  the 
buildings  whose  ruins  have  been  studied  indicate  that  any  were 
constructed  with  reference  to  the  assembling  of  people,  except 
the  processions,  with  priests,  in  the  temples,  and  that  the  Laby- 
rinth, moreover,  in  the  twelfth  dynasty,  contemporary  with  Abra- 
ham, had  meetings  of  the  delegates  from  the  different  nomes,  or 
provinces,  to  discuss  the  political  affairs  of  the  kingdom. 


fit^t  €f)catcr  in  3Cnicrica»  91 


he  took  the  whole  play-going  public  by  storm,  made 
men  old  in  prejudice  forget  the  idols  of  their  youth  and 
like  Pope  confess  that  he  never  had  his  equal.  *  *  * 
From  "  Richard  III."  to  "  Abel  Drugger,"  from  "  King 
Lear"  to  "Don  Felix,"  from"  Macbeth"  to  "Bay  es,"  his 
tragic  force,  his  keen  sense  of  humor,  his  marvelous 
genius  carried  everything  before  it;"  and  this  combina- 
tion of  ecpial  excellence,  and  in  the  highest  degree,  in  both 
tragedy  and  comedy  is  the  more  remarkable,  for  the 
two  great  Roman  actors,  Roscius  in  comedy  and 
iEsopus  in  tragedy,  never  crossed  the  limits  of  their 
respective  branches,  and  both  reached  the  preeminence 
they  attained  by  the  most  careful  and  assiduous  study. 
It  is  said  of  Roscius  that,  in  the  very  height  of  his 
reputation,  he  did  not  even  venture  upon  a  gesture  that 
he  did  not  carefully  consider  and  practise  in  private, 
and  yet,  notwithstanding  this  elaborate  study,  there  was 
no  mannerism  or  affectation  in  his  acting,  but  every- 
thing he  did  seemed  natural  to  the  character  he  repre- 
sented ;  and  having  referred  to  these  two  great  Roman 
actors,  it  may  be  mentioned,  as  an  example  of  being 
endowed  like  Garrick  with  qualities  that  enable  him 
who  possesses  them  to  soar  easily  and  at  once  to  the 
highest  reach  of  his  art,  that  Terence,  the  most  ele- 
gant, subtle,  and  felicitous  in  expression  of  the  Roman 
comic  dramatists,  is  supposed,  his  biography  being  but 
imperfectly  known,  to  have  been  born  a  slave,  who  at 
the  age  of  twenty-seven  offered  his  first  play,  the  "  An- 
dria,"  to  the  conductors  of  the  theatrical  exhibitions, 
who  referred  him  to  an  eminent  playwright  of  Rome 
for  its  examination,  where,  unknown  and  meanly  clad. 


92         fit^t  €gcatcr  in  ^llniaica. 

he  read,  seated  upon  a  low  stool,  his  opening  scene, 
afterwards  declared  by  Cicero  to  be  a  model  of  narra- 
tive, and  his  genius  was  at  once  recognized.* 

Csesar  called  him  a  half  Menander,  who  was  the 
Greeks'  ideal  of  a  perfect  comic  dramatist,  regarding 
him  in  comedy,  as  they  did  Sophocles  in  tragedy,  as  the 
most  complete  and  finished;  whose  judgment  we  accept, 
as  no  play  of  Menander,  though  he  is  said  to  have 
written  about  a  hundred  comedies,  has  come  down  to 
us,  but  only  fragments.  And  Plautus,  the  other  dis- 
tinguished Roman  dramatist,  should  also  be  mentioned 
as  a  further  illustration,  for  he  left  the  humble  employ- 
ment of  turning  a  mill  to  become  a  writer  of  plays,  and 
surpassed  Terence  in  native  comic  force,  his  gift  in  that 
direction  being  as  great  as  Shakespeare's  or  Moliere's. 

There  is  one  pervading  feature  of  the  drama  to 
which  those  who  have  written  against  it  seldom  refer, 
and  some  of  the  most  prominent  not  at  all,  that  the 
stage  is,  what  the  age  is,  or,  as  Shakespeare  has  suc- 
cinctly expressed  it  in  Hamlefs  speech  to  the  players, 
"  that  the  purpose  of  playing,  both  at  the  first  and  now, 
was  and  is,  as  't  were,  to  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature; 
to  show  virtue  her  own  feature,  scorn  her  own  image, 
and  the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time  his  form  and 
pressure^''  and  to  Poloiiius^  in  respect  to  the  players, 
that  "they  are  the  abstract  and  brief  chronicles  of  the 
time." 

If  a  people  are  alike  brave  and  greatly  cultivated,  as 
the  Athenians  were  when  the  drama  reached  to  its  high- 

*  Smith's  Dictionary,  Vol.  iii,  p.  997. 


5rir.0t  Cljcntcr  in  ^Cmcnca.         93 

est  attainment  among  them,  they  witness  with  plea- 
sure the  reproduction  of  noble  deeds,  and  listen  with 
delight  to  the  inculcation  of  noble  sentiments  from 
such  masters  of  the  dramatic  art  as  Euripedes  and 
Sophocles,  and  realize  with  great  enjoyment  the  power 
that  lies  in  ridicule  as  a  means  of  reforming  public 
abuses  and  correcting  deformities  in  the  character  of 
individuals  when  it  comes  from  such  a  satirist  and  wit 
as  Aristophanes.  But  when  a  nation  is  sinking  into  decay 
or  deteriorating,  the  stage  deteriorates  with  it;  or  when  a 
people  find  their  highest  enjoyment  in  amusements  that 
are  coarse  or  brutal,  like  the  Romans,  who  thronged  the 
amphitheater  to  witness  the  sanguinary  combat  of 
gladiators,  the  "maddening  excitement  of  the  circus";* 
or  found  pleasure  in  such  a  spectacle  as  beholding  the 
arena  filled  with  wild  beasts,  tearing  each  other  to 
pieces  —  the  performances  of  the  theater,  though  of  a 
different  kind,  became,  in  time,  of  the  like  degraded 
character,  and  stirred  up  against  the  drama  its  great- 
est, longest,  and  most  unrelenting  enemy  —  the  Chris- 

*  Gibbon  says  the  Roman  people  considered  the  circus  as 
their  home,  their  temple,  and  the  seat  of  the  republic.  The  im- 
patient crowd  rushed  at  the  dawn  of  day  to  secure  their  places; 
and  therewere  many  who  passed  sleepless  and  anxious  nights  in  the 
adjacent  porticos.  From  the  morning  to  the  evening,  careless  of  the 
sun  or  of  the  rain,  the  spectators,  who  sometimes  amounted  to 
the  number  of  four  hundred  thousand,  remained  in  eager  atten- 
tion; their  eyes  fixed  on  the  horses  and  charioteers,  their  minds 
agitated  with  hope  and  fear,  for  the  success  of  the  colors  which 
they  espoused  and  the  happiness  of  Rome  appeared  to  hang  on 
the  event  of  a  race.  "  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall,"  Vol.  iv.  pp.  87, 
88.     London  edition  of  1848. 


94         fic^t  Cfjcatcr  in  ^tnicrica. 

tian  Church.  A  warfare  against  it,  at  that  time,  on  the 
part  of  the  Church,  that  was  necessary  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  society  ;  for  in  the  period  which  Gibbon,  in 
his  great  contribution  to  Enghsh  hterature,  distinguishes 
as  the  Dechne  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  stage 
sank  lower  than  it  ever  was  before,  or  has  ever  been 
since. 

St.  Augustine,  writing  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century,  in  an  article  of  great  severity  against  the  the- 
ater, with  whose  abuses  he  was  no  doubt  thoroughly 
familiar  in  his  wild  youth,  says :  "  The  theaters,  those 
cages  of  uncleanliness  and  public  schools  of  debauch- 
ery, are  tumbling  almost  everywhere,"  which  was  the 
fact,  as  stationary  places  of  amusement  in  cities  or 
towns.  And  Tertullian,  who  wrote  at  the  end  of  the 
second  century,  says  even  the  very  magistrates  who 
abet  the  stage  discountenance  the  players,  stigmatize 
their  character,  and  cramp  their  freedom.  "  The 
whole  tribe  of  them,"  he  says,  "  is  thrown  out  of 
all  power  and  privilege.  They  are  neither  suffered 
to  be  lords  or  gentlemen,  to  come  within  the  Senate, 
or  to  harangue  the  people."  *  And  yet  the  Church, 
with  all  its  efforts  and  all  the  power  the  law  gave  it, 
could  not  suppress  the  players,  for  so  deeply  implanted 
is  the  love  for  the  dramatic  art,  alike  in  those  whose 
vocation  it  is  to  represent  it  and  those  who  find  enjoy- 
ment in  seeing  it,  that  it  continued  thereafter,  in  some 
form  or  other,  under  the  names  of  mimes,  masques, 
drolls,  and  other  titles,  to  be  exhibited  throughout  the 

*  Collier,  256,  1st.  ed. 


jpir^t  CjjCiitci:  in  3llmcnca.  v5 


different  countries  of  Kurojic  by  a  strolling  class  of 
itinerants,  under  the  various  names  of  gleemen,  min- 
strels, joculators,  and  other  titles,  on  the  village  green, 
in  the  hall  or  courtyard  of  the  castle,  in  the  city  street, — 
a  movable  stage  for  the  players  being  all  that  was  ne- 
cessary,—  and  especially  at  the  fairs,  those  gatherings  of 
the  Middle  Ages  for  commercial  purposes,  when  amuse- 
ment was  one  of  the  attractions,  whether  it  was  a  local 
fair  in  a  town,  or  one  of  those  gatherings  of  people 
from  many  countries  as  at  Beaucaire,  in  France. 

But  while  the  Church  did  not  and  could  not  suppress 
the  practitioner,  as  he  was  then  called,  of  the  "  gay 
science,"  it  made  him,  for  more  than  a  thousand  years, 
a  wanderer  and  a  vagabond.  The  consolation  which 
religion  affords  to  support  us  in  our  trials,  cares,  and 
troubles  in  this  life  was  denied  him,  except  so  far  as 
he  could  find  it  solely  within  himself;  for  he  could  par- 
ticii)ate  in  none  of  those  rites  or  acts  of  religious  ob- 
servance which  the  Church  administers,  and  the  believer 
relies  on,  for  securing  a  happy  life  hereafter.  Upon 
his  death-bed  no  mark  was  made  upon  his  forehead  as 
the  Church's  signet  of  his  repentance  and  hope  of  re- 
demption, nor  could  he  lie  in  consecrated  ground.  If 
a  woman  who  had  been  baptized  married  a  player, 
she  was  excommunicated ;  and  so  were  any  of  the 
laity  who  went  to  any  such  performances  on  a  Sunday 
or  a  holiday,  these  being  the  only  days  when  the  work- 
ing classes,  after  doing  their  duty  by  attending  mass, 
had  leisure  for  recreation. 

After  several  centuries  the  Church,  with  a  sagacity  it 
has  frequently  shown,  finding  that  it  could  not  suppress 


96         fit^t  CJjcatct  in  5Cmrrica. 

the  players  —  that  in  all  countries  they  had  the  counte- 
nance and  support  of  the  common  people,  who,  unable 
to  acquire  knowledge  by  reading,  except  in  very  rare 
instances,  quickly  comprehended  a  dramatic  represen- 
tation, and  that  it  made  a  great  impression  upon  them, — 
determined  to  make  use  of  the  very  thing  it  had  con- 
tinued to  denounce  for  centuries, —  a  play,  as  an  instru- 
ment in  the  hands  of  the  Church  for  spreading  and 
more  deeply  impressing  religion  upon  the  unlettered 
classes^  who  then  constituted  the  great  bulk  of  the 
community,  by  a  representation,  through  its  instrumen- 
tality, of  the  miracles  that  had  been  wrought  for  the  faith. 
This  afterwards  was  extended  to  the  representation 
of  the  passion  of  Christ  and  religious  subjects  generally, 
not  only  what  appertained  to  the  history  of  the  Church 
but  to  what  was  theological,  under  the  titles  of  miracle 
plays,  mysteries,  and  moralities,  to  which  a  recent  writer 
has  felicitously  given  the  general  name  of  the  monastic 
drama.*  This  resort  to  plays  as  a  means  of  religious 
teaching  was  especially  the  case  from  the  tenth  to  the 
twelfth  century.  Monasteries  and  convents,  where  the 
name  of  a  play  had  been  previously  an  abomination, 
now  became  active  centers  in  the  production,  prepara- 
tion, and  representation  of  these  mysteries  and  moralities 
on  the  part  of  monks  and  nuns.  They  were  written  and 
acted  by  ecclesiastics,  and  when  they  were  given  —  as 
they  frequently  were  —  in  churches,  a  bishop  presided 
at  the  performance,  with  his  miter  on  and  pastoral  staff 
in  hand.     Even  nuns  wrote  plays,  the  Benedictine 

*  Prof.  A.  W.  Ward. 


5ftr^t  €i^cata  in  'H:nicrica»  97 

nun  Hrotsvith,  of  Saxony,  in  the  tenth  century,  being 
celebrated  for  her  plays,  which  were  distinguishable 
for  their  purity  in  respect  to  religion  and  morals,  her 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  the  dramatic  interest 
she  could  impart  to  a  scene.  As  the  object  was  to  at- 
tract the  common  people  as  much  as  possible,  and  to 
do  this  it  was  necessary  to  amuse  and  interest  as  well 
as  to  instruct  them,  these  representations  were  not 
limited  to  the  serious  or  solemn,  but  were  freely  inter- 
spersed with  what  was  comic  or  amusing.  When  the 
devil,  and  his  attendant,  named  Vice,  two  characters 
that  were  frequently  represented  in  the  action  of  the 
play,  were  confounded  by  some  witty  retort,  made 
ridiculous  by  a  happy  thrust  of  humor,  or  were  out- 
witted in  their  design  by  some  clever  trick,  it  may  be 
assumed  that  the  sleek  friar  and  the  kindly  nun 
laughed  as  heartily  as  any  of  the  audience.  In  the 
tenth  century  a  miracle  play  called  "  The  Deluge  "  was 
performed,  in  which  Noah's  wife  refuses  to  go  into  the 
ark, — being  represented,  as  it  would  appear,  as  regarding 
it  only  as  a  shower, —  and  boxes  her  husband's  ears 
when  he  attempts  to  compel  her  to ;  this  display  of 
feminine  pertinacity  being  what  in  theatrical  parlance 
is  regarded  as  a  hit.  And  in  the  twelfth  century  the 
Merchant  Drapers'  Company  of  London  represented 
in  a  miracle  play  the  Creation,  and,  that  the  represen- 
tation might  be  exact,  our  first  parents  appeared  on 
the  stage  without  any  covering  whatever,  which  the 
Drapers'  Company,  I  suppose,  regarded  as  appropriately 
illustrating  the  necessity  for  that  which  the  merchant 
draper  supplies;  for  I  remember  that  at  the  celebration 


98         f  ir^t  «iri)cntcc  in  3llnicrica. 

in  1825  in  New  York  of  the  completion  of  the  Erie 
Canal  the  tailors  marched  in  that  great  procession  with 
a  huge  banner,  in  which  Adam  and  Eve  were  repre- 
sented in  a  like  condition,  with  the  words  beneath,  "  Ye 
were  naked  and  we  clothed  you." 

The  first  theater  in  modern  times,  by  which  I  mean 
a  permanent  structure  for  such  a  purpose,  in  a  fixed 
place,  was  erected  in  Paris  about  the  year  1400,  by  a 
body  known  as  the  Confraire  de  la  Passion  de  N.  S., 
for  the  representation  of  the  Scriptural  mysteries.  But 
solemn  as  was  the  name  given  by  the  founders  and 
their  purpose  in  building  this  theater,  it  would  appear 
that  in  the  course  of  time  it  had  to  yield  to  the  comic 
and  the  amusing,  as  much,  and  probably  more  than 
the  miracle  plays,  mysteries  and  moralities  that  had 
been  long  established,  for  in  the  middle  of  the  next 
century,  that  is  in  1547,  it  was  suppressed  by  the  Par- 
liament for  the  scandal  it  created  by  what  Hallam  calls 
"  this  devout  buffoonery." 

These  religious  plays,  however  limited,  extended,  or 
different  they  may  have  been,  it  appears  to  be  con- 
ceded, gave  rise  to  the  modern  drama,  and  I  think  it 
very  possible  that  the  existence  of  the  comic  and  the 
tragic  in  the  same  play,  which  we  find  so  marked  in 
Shakespeare,  and  which  is  so  much  nearer  to  what  takes 
place  in  life  than  the  French  classical  drama  of  Cor- 
neille  and  Racine,  may  have  been  suggested  to  Shake- 
si)eare  by  these  early  religious  plays  in  which  both  were 
combined,  which  he  may  frequently  have  witnessed, 
and  probably  did,  as  a  boy. 

But  although  this  use  of  the  drama  was  an  aid  to 


first  Cjjctitcr  in  5tmcrica.  99 

the  Church,  that  circumstance  in  no  way  affected  or 
lessened  the  Church's  attitude  toward  the  players  who 
acted  profane  plays,  farces,  interludes,  or  gave  any 
kind  of  dramatic  entertainment  of  that  description.  It 
was  right  to  employ  it  on  behalf  of  the  Church,  but  to 
make  any  other  use  of  it  was  sinful  and  unlawful.  So 
the  player,  or  common  player,  as  he  was  called,  to 
distinguish  him  from  the  histrionic  assistant  of  the 
Church,  remained  as  he  was  before.  So  late  even  as 
the  thirty-ninth  year  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  a  statute 
was  passed  declaring  that  common  players  should  be 
taken  and  adjudged  to  be  rogues,  vagabonds,  and 
sturdy  beggars,  etc.,  etc.,  and  be  subject  to  the  penalties 
therein  provided,  which  Jeremy  Collier  declares  were 
"  infamous  to  the  last  degree,  and  capital,  too,  unless  they 
give  over,"  that  is,  were  punishable  with  death.  But  a 
reservation  was  made  in  favor  of  players  that  belonged 
to  a  baron  or  other  personage  of  high  degree,  who 
were  authorized  to  play  under  his  signature  and  seal, 
by  which  an  opening  was  left  for  the  rise  and  devel- 
opment of  the  great  era  in  the  dramatic  history  of 
England  that  followed. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  the  persecution,  penal- 
ties, hardships,  and  sufferings  to  which  the  common 
players  were  subject,  they  clung  to  their  vocation  with 
a  tenacity  that  showed  how  strong  was  their  affection 
for  it ;  that  it  was  not  only  a  means  of  livelihood,  but 
the  one  of  all  others  they  preferred,  for  to  impart 
pleasure  is  as  much  of  an  enjoyment  as  to  receive  it. 
But  persistent  as  was  this  degradation  of  the  players, 
the  Church  and  the  law  had  to  yield  at  last  to  the  in- 


loo        fit^t  €Jcatn:  in  3tmcrica. 

evitable.  But  how  long  this  was  in  coming  about,  or 
how  long  the  effect  of  it  prevented  the  player  from 
being  recognized  as  on  the  same  level  with  the  rest  of 
his  fellow-men,  may  be  illustrated  by  the  well-known 
anecdote  of  Garrick,  when  a  chimney-sweep  called 
out  to  his  fellow,  "  There  goes  Garrick  the  player,"  and 
his  companion  responded,  "  Hush,  you  don't  know 
what  you  may  come  to  yourself." 

When  we  examine  those  treatises  that  have  been 
written  against  the  stage,  the  material  upon  which  they 
rely  is  almost  invariably  derived  from  its  abuse,  with- 
out considering  that  that  abuse  is  not  due  to  the  the- 
ater as  an  institution,  but  to  the  state  of  society  that 
gives  rise  to  it.  Some  writers  are  broad-minded 
enough  to  make  this  discrimination;  but  the  bulk  of 
them  do  not,  which  this  contrast  will  sufficiently  illus- 
trate. Tertullian,  writing  about  the  beginning  of  the 
third  century,  writes  thus  of  the  stage  :  "  What,  though 
the  performance  may  be  in  some  measure  pretty  and 
entertaining  —  what,  though  innocence,  yes,  and  vir- 
tue, too,  shines  through  some  part  of  it !  It  is  not  the 
custom  to  prepare  poison  unpalatable,  nor  make  up 
ratsbane  with  rhubarb  and  senna.  No,  to  have  the 
mischief  speed,  they  must  oblige  the  senses  and  make 
the  dose  pleasant.  Thus,  the  devil  throws  in  a  cordial 
drop  to  make  the  draught  go  down,  and  steals  some 
ingredients  from  the  dispensary  of  heaven.  In  short, 
look  upon  all  the  engaging  sentences  of  the  stage  — 
their  flights  of  fortitude  and  philosophy,  the  loftiness  of 
their  style,  the  music  of  the  cadence,  and  the  fineness 
of  the  conduct !     Look  upon  it  only,  I  say,  as  honey 


jrhr^t  Cljcatcr  in  3llmcrica,        loi 

dropping  from  the  bowels  of  a  toad,  or  the  bag  of  a 
spider."*  And  fourteen  hundred  years  afterward  a 
discrimination  was  made  in  a  sermon  by  Archbishop 
Tillotson,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  Enghsh  divines, 
denouncing  the  Hcentiousness  of  the  English  stage  as 
it  then  existed,  and  the  plays  that  were  acted,  as  a  re- 
proach to  the  nation,  which  was  true;  but  in  which  he 
says  that  to  denounce  the  stage  in  general  would  not 
be  just  or  reasonable  ;  for,  he  continues,  "  it  is  very 
possible  that  they  "  (the  plays)  "  might  be  so  framed, 
and  governed  by  such  rules  as  not  only  to  be  inno- 
cently diverting,  but  instructing  and  useful;  to  put 
some  vices  and  follies  out  of  countenance,  which  can- 
not, perhaps,  be  so  decently  reproved  nor  so  effectu- 
ally exposed  and  corrected  in  any  other  way."  But 
examples  like  Tillotson's,  at  least  in  England,  have 
been  rare.  Even  the  great  Bossuet,  as  he  has  been 
called,  one  of,  if  not  the  most  distinguished  of,  French 
pulpit  orators,  and  a  prominent  theological  writer,  was  an 
example  of  the  opposite.  An  actor  having  some  scru- 
ples of  conscience  respecting  his  continuing  in  his  pro- 
fession, consulted  a  priest  named  Cafifaro,  who,  by  his 
reasoning,  appears  not  only  to  have  removed  the  actor's 
scruples,  but  wrote  a  defense  of  the  stage,  which,  not  be- 
ing desirous  of  being  known  as  the  author,  he  published 
anonymously ;  and  when  it  was  ascertained  that  he 
was  the  writer  of  it,  the  Arclibishop  of  Paris  threatened 
to  suspend  him ;  and  Bossuet  wrote  a  pastoral  letter 
exhorting  him  to  repent  his  mistake,  and  rescind  his 

*  Jeremy  Collier's  "View  of  the  English  Stage,"  ist  ed.,  p. 
258. 


I02        fit^t  €j)catcr  in  ^Unicrira. 

mischievous  opinions,  which  the  priest  accordingly 
did.* 

While  the  stage  may  and  does  much  to  maintain  a 
healthy  moral  feeling  in  society,  in  tlie  powerful  eflect 
that  is  produced  by  the  dramatic  representation  of 
virtuous  deeds  and  of  guilty  actions,  and  the  conse- 
quences that  attend  the  latter,  as  an  institution  the 
theater  does  not  retard  society  in  its  downward  course, 
but  may  be  said  rather  to  accelerate  it.  The  players 
depend  for  their  support  upon  public  patronage,  and 
therefore  court  public  favor,  as  when  a  nation  through 
luxury,  or  those  causes  that  bring  about  national  de- 
cay and  the  consequences  that  follow  it,  or  where  a 
reaction  takes  place,  as  it  did  in  England  from  the 
reign  of  puritanism  to  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy 
under  Charles  II.,  and  from  the  example  set  by  the  re- 
stored monarch,  society,  or  rather  what  is  called  high 
society,  as  a  class,  becomes  corrupt  and  licentious, 
the  theater  caters  to  the  taste  of  those  who  are  its 
chief  patrons,  as  the  theaters  did  then  by  the  produc- 
tion and  representation  mainly  of  comedies  in  which, 
as  Dr.  Johnson  expressed  it,  "  the  plot  was  an  intrigue, 
and  the  wit  indecency,"  and,  as  respects  some  of  these 
comedies,  indecency  might  be  extended  to  the  word 
filth. 

That  great  epoch  that  is  distinguished  as  the  Eliza- 
bethan drama,  which  includes  some  of  the  highest 
efforts  of  the  human  intellect,  is  embraced  within  the 
narrow  limits  of  fifty-five  years  —  or  from  Marlowe  to 

*  Bossuet's  Works,  Vol.  xxxii.  Calcraft's  "  Defence  of  the 
Stage,"  p.  12. 


fiv^t  CJjcatcc  in  3llnicrifa.         103 


Shirley  —  that  is,  from  the  first  representation  of  Mar- 
lowe's "Tamerlane,"  in  1587,  to  the  year  1642,  when 
the  act  of  Parliament  was  passed  forbidding  the  acting 
of  plays  in  any  part  of  England,  upon  which  Shirley 
ceased  to  write.  It  would  seem  to  have  begun  to  de- 
cline in  Ben  Jonson's  life,  for  in  the  dedication  to  his 
play  of  "  The  Fox  "  he  says  at  that  date,  1607,  respect- 
ing the  theater,  "  that  nothing  but  ribaldry,  profana- 
tion, and  blasphemy  was  practised,"  and  in  respect  to 
himself,  that  he  could  with  a  clear  conscience  affirm 
that  he  "  loathed  the  use  of  such  foul  and  unwashed 
bawdry  as  is  now  made  the  food  of  the  scene."  * 

However  this  may  have  been,  the  condition  of  the 
stage  had  become  such  as  to  arouse  the  opposition 
of  the  puritans,  and  in  1633  William  Prynne,  a  puri- 
tan barrister  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  published  a  large  vol- 
ume which  he  called  "  Histrio-Mastix.  The  Players' 
Scourge,  or  the  Actors'  Tragedy,  in  two  books,  in 
which  it  is  largely  evidenced  by  divers  arguments  that 
popular  stage  plays  are  sinful,  heathenish,  lewd,  and 
ungodly  spectacles,"  a  book  more  remarkable  for  the 
extensive  erudition  of  the  author,  or  rather  for  his  in- 
dustry in  bringing  such  a  mass  6f  materials  together, 
than  for  his  arguments,  which  I  shall  not  pause  now 
to  enumerate,  as  they  can  be  considered  hereafter  with 
those  of  subsequent  writers  in  the  concrete,  being  all 
of  the  same  general  character,  and  founded  almost  ex- 
clusively upon  the  abuses  of  the  stage. 

He  was  persecuted  by  the  government  for  the  pub- 

*  Gifford's  "  Jonson,"  Vol.  iii.,pp.  162,  163. 


I04        fitBt  €f)catcr  in  5tmmca« 

lication  of  this  work  and  heavily  punished,  not  so 
much,  it  was  said,  for  what  he  had  written  against  the 
stage,  as  for  passages  in  it  that  it  was  assumed  were 
intended  to  reflect  uj)on  Charles  I.  and  his  queen, 
Henrietta  Maria.  The  queen  and  her  ladies  had  taken 
part  in  the  performance  of  a  play,  and  a  passage  in  the 
book  reflecting  upon  actresses  in  general  was  construed 
as  an  aspersion  upon  her,  and  a  reference  to  Nero  and 
other  tyrants  who  had  failed  to  suppress  the  plays  was 
supposed  to  have  been  aimed  at  the  king.  He  was 
tried  in  the  Star  Chamber  and  sentenced  to  be  put  in 
the  pillory,  to  have  his  ears  cut  off  and  be  branded  on  the 
cheek  with  the  letters  S.  L.  (signifying  Seditious  Li- 
beller), expelled  from  Lincoln's  Inn,  deprived  of  his 
degree  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  his  book  was 
ordered  to  be  burned  by  the  common  hangman,  to  all 
of  which  was  added  a  fine  of  ^5,000,  a  large  sum  at 
that  day,  and  be  imprisoned  for  life,  all  of  which  was 
vigorously  carried  out  as  far  as  it  could  be.  Upon 
the  overthrow  of  Charles  I.  he  was  released  by  Parlia- 
ment, the  sentence  against  him  was  declared  to  have 
been  illegal,  a  sum  of  money  was  voted  to  him  by  way 
of  restitution,  and,  being  a  great  favorite  with  the  peo- 
ple, alike  from  his  sufferings  and  his  writings,  he  was 
elected  a  member  of  Parliament,  where,  strangely 
enough,  he  became  a  strong  antagonist  of  Cromwell 
and  was  in  turn  imprisoned  by  his  own  party,  became 
an  advocate  for  the  monarchy,  was  rewarded  after  the 
Restoration  by  the  ofiice  of  Keeper  of  the  Records  of 
the  Tower,  and  dedicated  one  ofhis  works  to  Charles  II. 
He  is  said  to  have  written  more  than  two  hundred 


jfir.0t  *^l)catcr  in  3lmcnca.         105 


books,  a  remarkable  instance  of  fecundity,  though 
many  were,  as  I  supjiose,  mere  tracts  or  pamphlets. 
And  this  curious  incident  in  the  history  of  literature  in 
respect  to  one  of  them,  his  work  against  the  stage, 
"  Histrio-Mastix,"  may  be  mentioned :  that  sixteen 
years  after  it  was  i^ublished,  that  is  in  1649,  the  year 
in  which  Charles  I,  was  executed,  an  unknown  writer, 
with  a  view  of  depriving  it  of  whatever  influence  it 
may  have  had,  published  a  book  entitled  "  William 
Prynne,  His  Defence  of  Stage  Plays,  a  Retraction  of  a 
former  work  of  his  called  Histrio-Mastix."  It  would, 
indeed,  have  been  curious  if  a  man  who  had  written 
so  bitterly  as  he  had  against  the  stage,  and  had  accu- 
mulated and  printed  such  a  mass  of  learning  to  sup- 
port the  attack  upon  it,  should  have  retracted  all  he 
had  said  and  come  out  as  the  author  of  a  work  in  de- 
fense of  the  stage.  But  it  was  a  forgery ;  Prynne  pub- 
lished afterwards  what  is  called  a  broadside,  entitled 
"  Mr.  Prynne's  Vindication  of  himself  from  being  the 
author  of  The  Defence  of  Stage  Plays." 

It  will  not  be  necessary  in  a  brief  review  like  this  to 
refer  to  what  many  eminent  men  have  said  in  favor 
of  the  stage,  as  my  purpose  has  been  to  consider  the 
objections  made  against  it,  and  it  is  the  less  necessary 
as  it  has  already  been  admirably  done  by  John  W.  Cal- 
craft,  manager  of  the  Theater  Royal  of  Dublin,  in  a 
volume  entitled  "  A  Defence  of  the  Stage,"  published 
in  that  city  in  1839.  Calcraft  was  not  only  a  manager 
of  a  theater,  but  a  man  with  a  large  amount  of  infor- 
mation respecting  the  history  of  the  drama,  and  a  good 
classical  scholar,  who  was  able  to  consult  the  authori- 


io6        fit^t  €jjcatcr  in  ^Uniorifa. 

ties  when  requisite  in  the  original.  He  prefixes  at  the 
beginning  of  the  book  a  Hst  of  those  he  cites  or  quotes 
in  it  in  favor  of  the  stage,  which,  independent  of  Hterary 
men  and  other  writers,  contains  four  cardinals,  nine 
archbishops,  fourteen  bishops,  and  forty-six  divines,  and 
among  them  are  some  of  the  most  eminent  names  in 
the  church,  as  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  called  the  Angelic 
Doctor,  Albertus  Magnus,  St.  Antoninus,  Archbishop 
of  Florence,  Melanchthon,  and  Martin  Luther,  the  lat- 
ter of  whom  writes :  "  of  all  amusements  the  theater  is 
the  most  profitable";  and  it  further  appears,  on  the  au- 
thority of  Baker's  Biographia  Dramatica,  that  more 
than  one  hundred  clergymen  in  England  have  written 
plays.  Calcraft  also  gives  a  remarkable  illustration  of 
an  attempt  to  carry  out  what  writers  against  the  stage 
have  earnestly  advocated,  the  entire  suppression  of 
the  theater,  as  if  all  mankind  were  made  like  them- 
selves, or  were  capable  of  being  made  so.  Charles 
Borromeo,  Archbishop  of  Milan,  in  his  zeal  for  the 
security  of  the  public  morals,  "  shut  up  the  play-house 
and  expelled  the  players,  strollers,  and  minstrels  as 
debauchers  and  corrupters  of  mankind,  but  soon  had 
reason  to  alter  his  opinion,  for  he  found  that  the  people 
ran  into  all  manner  of  excesses,  and  that,  wanting  some- 
thing to  amuse  them,  they  committed  the  most  horrid 
crimes  by  way  of  pastime.  On  this  account  he  re- 
pented of  his  edict,  recalled  the  banished  players,  and 
granted  them  a  free  use  and  liberty  of  the  stage." 

The  licentiousness  of  the  theater  after  the  Restora- 
tion had  become  such  as  to  call  for  some  leading  mind 
to  appeal  to  the  body  of  the  English  people,  who  were 


jrir^t  Cljcatcr  iii  ^Inicrica*        107 


then,  as  they  have  always  been,  a  strong  race  to  bestir 
themselves  in  the  cause  of  public  morality,  and  such  a 
one  was  found  in  the  Rev.  Jeremy  Collier,  a  man  of 
learning  and  ability,  who,  in  1698,  published  what  he 
called  "A  Short  View  of  the  Immorality  and  Profanity 
of  the  English  Stage,  together  witli  the  Sense  of  An- 
tiquity upon  this  Argument,"  which  brought  about  a 
reformation  as  rapid  as  it  was  thorough.  About  one 
half  the  book  was  devoted  to  the  English  stage  as  it 
then  existed,  and  its  contrast  with  that  of  antiquity, 
very  much  to  the  discredit  of  the  former,  and  to  those 
who  were  then  thought  so  highly  of  as  comic  drama- 
tists. Collier  was  a  fine  classical  scholar,  and  so  fa- 
miliar with  the  Greek  dramatists  and  with  Terence 
and  Plautus  among  the  Romans,  as  well  as  with  all 
the  leading  comedies  produced  after  the  Restoration, 
that  he  was  able  to  compare  these  comedies,  passage 
by  passage,  with  the  Latin  and  Greek  dramatists,  and 
thereby  furnish  unanswerable  proof,  not  only  of  their 
inferiority,  but  of  the  degraded  character  of  the  plays 
then  produced  on  the  English  stage,  when  compared 
with  the  productions  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  drama- 
tists. He  showed  in  respect  to  the  stage,  in  different 
chapters,  its  immodesty,  its  profaneness,  its  ridicule 
of  the  clergy,  and  its  encouragement  of  immorality 
so  completely  that  there  was  no  replying  to  it,  Dryden, 
who  was  a  leading  playwright  at  the  time,  yielded  at 
once,  not  attempting  to  defend  himself;  on  the  con- 
trary, he  even  thanked  Collier  for  his  treatment  of  him, 
complaining  only  of  his  roughness,  Congreve  under- 
took to  reply,  but  it  was  a  failure,  and  that  he  felt  that 


io8        fit0t  Zl^catct  in  3tmmca. 

Collier  was  right  appears  in  the  fact  that  in  a  sub- 
sequent edition  of  his  plays  he  left  out  many  offensive 
passages. 

Collier's  strength  lay  in  the  truth  of  what  he  said 
about  the  condition  of  the  English  stage  at  that  time, 
and  in  the  fact  that  he  was  a  learned  man,  which,  in 
itself,  inspired  respect,  and  enabled  him  to  cope  with 
any  general  scholar  who  should  attempt  to  answer 
him.  The  result  was,  that  his  book  aroused  the  peo- 
ple, and  the  nation  went  with  him  in  effecting  a  re- 
form that  has  lasted  ever  since. 

But  he  did  not  confine  himself  to  the  immorality 
and  profanity  of  the  English  stage,  but  extended  his 
attack  to  the  stage  in  general.  He  devoted  the  latter 
part  of  his  book  to  copious  quotations  from  pagan 
writers,  from  the  fathers  of  the  church,  and  from  the 
laws  that  had  to  be  passed  respecting  plays,  to  show,  as 
he  expressed  it,  that  they  "  had  generally  been  looked 
upon  as  the  nurseries  of  vice,  the  corrupters  of  youth, 
and  the  grievance  of  the  country  where  they  are  suf- 
fered." It  was  my  impression  at  first  that  a  man  so 
thoroughly  well  informed  respecting  the  history  of  the 
theater  in  antiquity  could  discriminate  between  its  use 
and  its  abuse  as  its  condition  was  then  in  England,  and 
that  he  made  his  assault  upon  it  general  that  it  might 
have  more  effect  than  if  he  admitted  any  qualification 
whatever,  in  the  expectation  that  its  chief  patrons,  who 
were  then  what  are  called  the  higher  classes,  would 
cease  to  attend  the  representation  of  these  comedies 
whose  immorality  and  profaneness  he  had  so  unan- 
swerably shown,  and  that  in  time  by  this  means  the 


fit^t  Zl^catct  in  ^Hmcrica.        109 

theater  would  gradually  correct  itself.  But  a  more 
careful  perusal  of  the  book,  and  a  consideration  of  the 
labor  he  bestowed  in  getting  together  whatever  he 
could  find  from  any  source  against  it  as  an  institution, 
show  that  his  aim  was  the  impossible  —  to  abolish  the 
theater  altogether —  that  he  was  in  full  accord  with  the 
pithy  St.  Augustine  that  sinners  "  fancy  the  world 
goes  wonderfully  well  when  people  make  a  figure ; 
when  a  man  is  a  prince  in  his  fortune  and  a  beggar  in 
his  virtue;  has  a  great  many  fine  things  about  him, 
but  not  so  much  as  one  good  quality  to  deserve  them ; 
when  the  play-house  goes  up  and  religion  goes  down  ; 
when  prodigality  is  admired  and  charity  is  laughed  at ; 
when  the  players  can  revel  with  a  rich  man's  purse 
and  the  poor  man  has  scarcely  enough  to  keep  soul 
and  body  together  " ;  and  with  St.  Hierom  in  his  cau- 
tion to  ladies  to  have  "  nothing  to  do  with  the  play- 
house, because  it  sets  all  humors  at  work,  caresses  the 
fancy,  and  makes  pleasure  a  conveyance  to  destruction." 
Collier  divides  this  portion  of  his  subject  into  three 
parts :  the  opinion  of  philosophers,  orators,  poets,  and 
historians  of  antiquity ;  the  opinion  of  the  church ;  and 
that  of  the  state  as  shown  in  the  laws  enacted  against 
theaters.  In  making  these  quotations  he  frequently 
does  what  some  advocates  do,  quotes  so  much  as  sup- 
ports his  argument  and  omits  what  qualifies  or  limits  it. 
Thus,  when  he  quotes  from  Plutarch  that  plays  are  dan- 
gerous to  corrupt  young  people,  and  when  they  grow 
bawdy  or  licentious  they  should  be  checked,  he  omits 
the  further  observation  of  the  great  biographer,  that  he 
thought  plays  useful  to  polish  the  manners  and  instil 


5F ir^t  €Jcatci:  in  5llnicrica. 


tlie  principles  of  virtue,*  and,  while  giving  what  Ci- 
cero says  of  licentious  plays  as  an  authority  against 
the  institution  of  the  theater,  makes  no  mention  of  the 
fact  that  Roscius  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Cicero,  and 
that  it  is  to  Cicero  we  are  chiefly  indebted  for  our 
knowledge  of  the  greatness  of  the  Roman  actor  and  of 
the  purity  of  his  private  life. 

In  considering  the  objections  that  have  been  made 
to  the  stage,  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  particularize 
them,  as  they  are  founded  almost  entirely  upon  its 
abuses,  in  respect  to  which  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that 
nearly  all  things  have  their  abuses;  and,  as  Calcraft  put 
it,  to  insist  that  the  stage  should  be  abolished  and  its 
use  denied  because  of  its  abuse  would  be  about  as  rea- 
sonable as  to  denounce  the  pulpit  because  there  have 
been  rebellious  and  heterodoxical  preachers;  to  pro- 
scribe the  bench  because  therehavebeen  corrupt  and  un- 
just judges,  and  periods  of  the  venal  administration  of 
the  judiciary;  or  dispense  with  the  art  of  printing  because 
by  its  means  immoral  books  have  been  circulated.  This 
will  dispense  with  the  necessity  of  enumerating  the  ob- 
jections made  by  subsequent  writers,  such  as  the  Rev. 
Arthur  Bedford,  Bossuet,  Witherspoon,  Law,  and  a  few 
others,  the  first  of  whom,  Bedford,  published,  in  1719, 
what  he  called  "  A  Serious  Remonstrance  in  behalf  of 
the  Christian  Religion  against  the  horrid  blasphemies, 
and  impurities,  which  are  still  used  in  the  English  Play- 
houses, being  a  new  edition  of  the  Evil  of  Stage  Plays," 
in  which  he  is  said  to  have  cited  seven  thousand  lewd 

*  Calcraft,  p.  61. 


fit^t  ^Jjcatcc  in  5llnicrica. 


and  criminal  passages  out  of  plays  of  the  then  current 
century,  displaying,  in  my  opinion,  rather  a  prurient 
curiosity  than  a  labor  on  behalf  of  public  morality,  on 
the  part  of  a  clergyman  who  might  have  been  better 
employed ;  and  as  respects  what  has  been  advanced  by 
other  writers  against  the  theater  as  an  institution,  that 
is  concisely,  energetically,  and  fully  expressed  in  Col- 
lier's final  conclusion,  the  whole  of  which  I  shall  not 
give  in  detail,  but  sufficient  to  state  what  it  was. 

"  My  conclusion,"  he  says,  "  is  let  nobody  go  to  the 
Infamous  P/aj  House,  A  place  of  such  staring  contra- 
diction to  the  Strictness  and  Sobriety  of  Rehgion  A 
Place  hated  by  God  and  haunted  by  the  Devil.  Let 
no  man  I  say  learn  to  relish  any  thing  that's  said  there; 
For  'tis  all  but  poison  handsomely  prepared."  He 
objects  to  plays  as  "  dilating  so  much  on  the  passion  of 
love,  which  is  a  cunning  way  of  stealing  on  the  blind 
side  and  practising  upon  the  weakness  of  human  nature," 
that  "  people  love  to  see  their  passions  painted  no  less 
than  their  persons,  that  recommends  the  business  of 
amours  and  engages  inclination.  It  forms  passions 
where  it  does  not  find  them.  Love  has  a  parley  within, 
and  when  the  wax  is  prepared  the  impression  is  easily 
made,  and  when  these  passions  are  born  they  thrive 
extremely  in  that  nursery.  They  grow  strong,  and 
when  the  passions  are  up  in  arms  there  is  a  mighty 
contest  between  duty  and  inclination."  He  further 
objects  to  plays  as  encouraging  the  passion  of  revenge 
as  nothing  is  more  common  in  their  action  than  duels 
or  quarrels  among  the  leading  characters.  "  Practices " 
he  says,"  that  are  infamous  in  reason,  capital  in  law,  and 


IJ2        fit^t  €t\catct  in  ^Cmcrica. 

damnable  in  religion,  are  to  the  credit  of  the  stage,  and 
Rage  and  Resentment,  Blood  and  Barbarity  are  dei- 
fied." "  What  must  we  say,"  he  continues,  "  of  the 
more  foul  representations,  of  all  the  impudence  in  lan- 
guage and  gesture,  can  this  stuff  be  the  inclination  ot 
ladies  ?  Is  vice  so  entertaining,  and  do  they  love  to  see 
the  stews  depicted  before  them.  One  would  think  the 
dishonor  of  their  own  Sex  the  Discovery  of  so  much 
lewdness,  and  the  treating  of  Human  Nature  so  very 
coarsely  could  have  little  satisfaction  in  it."  .  .  .  Call 
you  this  Diversion  ?  Can  Profaneness  be  such  an  ir- 
resistible Delight  ?  ...  Is  the  Scorn  of  Christianity 
the  Entertainment  of  Christians  ?  Is  it  such  a  plea- 
sure to  hear  the  Scriptures  burlesqued  ?  Is  Ribaldry 
so  very  obliging  and  Atheism  so  charming  a  Quality  ? 
Are  we  indeed  willing  to  quit  the  Privilege  of  our 
Nature;  to  Surrender  our  Charter  of  Immortality  and 
throw  up  the  Pretenses  to  another  Life?"  And  he  winds 
up  his  conclusion  in  these  words :  "  In  short :  Noth- 
ing can  be  more  disserviceable  to  Probity  and  religion 
than  the  management  of  the  s/ai^c.  It  cherishes  those 
Passions,  and  rewards  those  Vices  which  'tis  the  busi- 
ness of  Reason  to  discountenance.  It  strikes  at  the 
Root  of  Principle  draws  off  the  Inclinations  from  Vir- 
tue and  spoils  good  Education,  'tis  the  most  effectual 
means  to  bafifle  the  Force  of  Discipline,  to  emasculate 
people's  Spirits  and  Debauch  their  Manners." 

It  is  sufficient  to  say  in  answer  to  all  this,  that 
an  examination  of  the  history  of  the  English  and 
American  stage  for  the  two  hundred  years  that  have 
elapsed  since  these  words  were  written,  shows  that  it 


fit^t  Cjjcatcr  in  3llmcnca.         113 

has  liad  no  such  effect,  that  it  has  been  a  rational 
source  of  amusement  that  has  been  beneficial  and  not 
injurious  to  society.  It  is  the  most  attractive  of  all 
amusements,  and  that  this  attraction,  as  an  amusement, 
has  continued  to  increase,  or,  at  least,  has  not  dimin- 
ished, would  seem  to  appear  from  the  number  ot 
theaters  there  is  now  in  London,  in  New  York,  in  Paris, 
and  in  other  cities  of  Europe. 

It  is  notable  that  plays  which  combine  enjoyment 
with  a  healthy  moral  effect  are  now  very  much  liked, 
such  as  Denman  Thompson's  "  Old  Homestead,"  Mr. 
Heme's  "  Shore  Acres,"  and  Mr.  John  Hare's  "  Pair 
of  Spectacles,"  and  plays  of  a  like  character  that  have 
within  the  present  period  been  produced  in  the  city 
of  New  York  by  these  three  managers,  Messrs.  Augus- 
tin  Daly,  Dan'l  Frohman,  and  A,  M.  Palmer;  and  that 
a  taste  in  this  country  has  been  widely  diffused  for 
what  is  exalted  in  the  drama,  is  found  in  the  fact  that 
crowded  audiences,  for  a  hundred  nights  consecu- 
tively, went  to  see  Edwin  Booth  perform  the  principal 
part  in  a  tragedy  of  so  high  a  character  as  Shakespeare's 
"  Hamlet." 

Another  feature  in  this  history  of  the  last  two  cen- 
turies, and  especially  since  the  days  of  John  Kemble, 
and  his  distinguished  sister,  Mrs.  Siddons,  is  that  the 
player  is  no  longer  a  wandering  vagabond,  or  one 
looked  down  upon  because  his  sole  vocation  in  life 
is  to  minister  to  our  pleasures,  but  one  who  is  as 
much  respected  as  any  other  member  of  the  com- 
munity, unless  he  does  something  individually  to  for- 
feit that  respect.     No  player  at  the  present  day  has, 


"4        fir^t  Z^catct  in  5lnicrica, 

in  respect  to  his  vocation,  to  exclaim  against  fortune 
as  Shakespeare  did  in  his  99th  sonnet : 

The  guilty  goddess  of  my  harmful  deeds, 

That  did  not  better  for  my  life  provide, 

Than  public  means  which  public  manners  breeds, 

Thence  comes  it  that  my  name  receives  a  brand, 

And  almost  thence  my  nature  is  subdued. 

To  what  it  works  in  like  the  dyer's  hand. 

All  this  is  now  completely  changed,  as  is  shown 
conclusively  by  the  circumstance  that  Sir  Henry  Irving 
has  been  honored  by  being  raised  to  the  dignity  of  a 
knight  for  his  eminence  as  an  actor.  We  are,  in  this 
respect,  where  Greece  was  when  the  drama  had 
reached  its  highest  perfection:  —  when  ^schylus,  who 
was  an  actor  as  well  as  dramatist,  commanded  as  an 
officer  on  the  field  of  Marathon,  where  his  exploits 
and  those  of  his  brother  were  so  remarkable  that  they 
were  commemorated  by  a  descriptive  painting  in  the 
theater  of  Athens ;  when  Neoptolemus,  a  celebrated 
tragic  actor,  was  sent  as  one  of  the  ambassadors  to 
conclude  a  treaty  of  peace  with  Philip ;  when  Aristo- 
demus,  another  great  tragic  actor,  was  prominent  in 
the  political  affairs  of  his  time,  was  also  employed  upon 
an  embassy,  and,  on  the  proposal  of  Demosthenes, 
was  honored  with  a  golden  crown  for  his  public  ser- 
vices ;  *  and  when  ^schylus,  Euripides,  and  Sophocles 
produced  those  plays  that  have  ever  since  been  the 
admiration  of  mankind. 

*  Smith's  "  Dictionary,"  Vol.  i,   p.  42  ;  Calcraft,  67. 


5Fir^t  Cljcatcc  in  3llmmca»         115 

Dr.  Franklin  wished  that  he  could,  after  a  hundred 
years,  return  again  to  this  earth  to  see  what  science  in 
the  meanwhile  had  accomplished,  and  could  Collier 
return  after  the  histrionic  experience  of  the  last  two 
centuries,  it  would  be  to  see  how  unfounded  were  his 
conclusions  respecting  the  theater  as  an  institution,  and 
will  ever  be  among  any  people  while  the  nation  re- 
mains in  a  healthy  condition. 

In  conclusion,  we  may  say  of  the  drama,  that  with 
the  four  other  arts  of  poetry,  music,  sculpture,  and 
painting,  it  has  been  the  natural  outcome  of  civiliza- 
tion ;  that  as  things  that  are  general  have  always  their 
exceptions,  there  may  have  been  races,  as  the  Egyp- 
tians appear  to  have  been,  who,  in  the  development  of 
their  civilization,  showed  no  aptitude  or  desire  for  it ; 
that  its  peculiar  attraction  is,  as  Lord  Bacon  says  : 
"  That  it  brings  the  past  before  us  as  if  it  were  the 
present;  "  and  as  respects  the  present,  that  it  is  what 
Shakespeare  and  Addison  declared  it  to  be,  the  mirror 
of  human  nature. 


14  DAY  USE 

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